A billionaire disconnect

The rise of artificial intelligence, or AI, and the connected rapid spread of new data centers around the country are the clearest signs yet of the yawning disconnect between the interests of average Americans and the billionaires who increasingly dictate our economy, our government, and, ultimately, our futures.
We live in an economy that is increasingly driven by the astonishing level of investment in an industry that may have benefits to offer down the road, but which has already cost hundreds of thousands of American workers their jobs and threatens millions more. Just last month, several major U.S. companies announced plans to eliminate over 150,000 jobs in the near future, the biggest combined layoff announcement in more than 20 years. AI was responsible for many of those job losses.
It could get much worse, and soon. The jaw-dropping amounts of money being spent on AI, which is speculative at this point since none of these companies has found a way to actually profit from their investments, has prompted growing concerns that the industry is inflating a giant bubble. We all know the economic carnage that such bubbles inevitably create when they burst. That potential carnage prompted Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, to recently state that he expects the federal government will bail him and his fellow billionaires out when that happens.
And he’s right. When America allowed the rise of a billionaire class and opened the door, through Citizens United, to their untethered interference in U.S. elections, we virtually surrendered the ability of average Americans to influence government policy.
Today, more than ever, the government is being run almost entirely for the interests of the richest people in the world.
It certainly isn’t the public driving the growth of AI. This isn’t a case of the private sector responding to consumer demand, as taught by traditional economic theory. Polls show most Americans are rightfully fearful of the ways that AI could negatively affect our lives. This is an industry that reflects the interests, egos, and prerogatives of billionaires, with little connection to the world that the rest of us inhabit.
Many of the people driving this industry openly acknowledge that AI could lead to humanity’s destruction or its enslavement by machines, which hardly seems like an outcome worth investing trillions of dollars to advance. At a minimum, it’s an industry where key decisions about the speed and direction of AI development should certainly not be left to a handful of the uber rich.
These billionaires and the politicians who’ve succumbed to the allure of their big money, don’t even bother to explain why development of AI should be society’s top priority. Keep in mind, when our economy invests trillions of dollars building new data centers to fuel the growth of AI, those funds aren’t going for other societal needs, like affordable housing, public health, or repairing roads that average Americans use every day.
Fortunately, average Americans are starting to fight back. The AI industry is heavily dependent on the continual construction of truly vast new data centers that disrupt communities, destroy productive landscapes, and consume unimaginable amounts of water and electricity, while producing only a relative handful of permanent jobs that go mostly to non-resident contractors.
Increasingly, communities are organizing to object, and they’re having an effect. A proposal for a large data center in Hermantown is reportedly on hold at this point after an outpouring of public pressure. Opponents to these centers have been described as NIMBYs, but that’s unfair. There are far bigger issues at stake in this fight than mere opposition to a large development project in someone’s back yard. This is about our right as Americans to have a say in the growth of an industry that has vast and largely undiscussed potential to alter society in fundamental ways. This is about whether we, as citizens, have any say over the decisions made by our government, or whether every decision is driven by big money, with the fix already in before the public even knows what’s happening.
The billionaires are starting to get the message. There’s a reason that the developers of the proposed Hermantown data center demanded non-disclosure agreements from local and county politicians involved in the planning.
They recognize that the public is on to them and that they’re beginning to organize to oppose their unchecked power.
It’s about time that our political class gets the message as well. If Americans want a voice in the direction and speed of development of artificial intelligence, we need to start electing politicians who will push back on the power of the billionaires and give the public its rightful seat at the table.