“Everybody…except [those advocating for it]” –– rhetoric that borders on tautology but, regardless, the author cites the Gallup poll showing 7 in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers and alludes to other widely-held sentiment. But it’s not about your feelings (or their feelings).

This piece, by a defense analyst formerly at RAND, expands its concerns out from public sentiment and is mainly drawing attention to major yet-unsolved and generally uncontested issues such as AI output being unoriginal (fundamentally due to next-word prediction), the output polluting future training (garbage in garbage out), and errors only being caught by experts (cf. the Gell-Mann amnesia effect). The essay, in a political magazine, intends to warn elected leadership about strategic issues that are likely to arise if our government and experts intertwine AI into their decision making without these concerns being solved first.

What makes you think that opposition to data center construction in their local area is proof that locals are 'weirded out' by AI generally, rather than just opposed to eyesores that drain their water and put up power prices?