China, Russia and Others Seek To Inflame Debate Over AI Data Centers

China, Russia, and Iran are using state media and covert influence operations to inflame debate over AI data centers in the United States, according to a new analysis by threat intelligence company Alethea. The campaigns, which include fake news articles and social media posts, aim to turn controversy over data centers into a domestic fracture point ahead of the midterm elections.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: A state-owned newspaper in China recently published a satellite image of a data center in Gainesville, Va., writing in English that the development of artificial intelligence posed a threat to Americans' physical and financial well-being. A comic strip made to look as if it had been published by a Maryland news outlet -- created with OpenAI's ChatGPT by people in China, the tech company said -- circulated on X this year, blaming data centers for soaring electricity bills. It showed a tycoon smoking a cigar and clutching bags of cash. A video shared on X by a known covert Russian influence operation questioned the viability of a data center that an American company, Firebird, is constructing in Armenia, the small Caucasus nation that has been a focus of Kremlin pressure. "The country's electrical grid instability may render it useless," the video's narrator says. All are examples of a push by foreign adversaries to seize on what polls have shown is deep ambivalence -- verging at times on hostility -- about the spread of the data centers needed to power A.I. in the United States and elsewhere. China, Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran have sought to use state media outlets to turn the controversy over data centers in the United States into "a domestic fracture point," according to a new analysis by Alethea, a threat intelligence company, which identified scores of articles and posts on social media this year. These campaigns, whose impact on public opinion remains to be seen, have raised alarms in Washington, where A.I. is seen as a top issue heading into this year's midterm elections. Read more of this story https://slashdot.org/story/26/07/13/0530223/china-russia-and-others-seek-to-inflame-debate-over-ai-data-centers?utm source=rss1.0moreanon&utm medium=feed at Slashdot.