Leave your AI panic next to yesterday’s nuclear power opposition

A Washington Examiner opinion piece argues that panic over artificial intelligence mirrors past opposition to nuclear power and threatens U.S. economic growth and technological leadership, citing tech futurist George Gilder's observation that voters support American leadership in advanced technology but oppose the industrial infrastructure required to produce it. The author claims that a Chinese bot farm of roughly 200,000 inauthentic accounts, including 200 tasked with slowing American AI development, is stoking public fear and manipulating policy, and warns that a federal moratorium on new data centers would not stop AI advancement in China.

Backlash and alarmism regarding artificial intelligence https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/artificial-intelligence continues to grow — seemingly in tandem with the rise in socialism, aka “parasites,” who see any successful capitalist whether small business owner, founder, entrepreneur, investor, property owner, or corporate leader, i.e., the visionaries, leaders, risk-takers, and builders as a “host” to suck dry rather than to encourage, admire, learn from, invest in, work for, or seek a business relationship with. Their narrative, amplified on social media https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/social-media , is that capitalists get richer at the expense of the common man. But the truth is, capitalists are not hoarding a fixed “economic pie”; they are growing the pie for everyone’s benefit by investing in PP&E, creating jobs, and hiring suppliers and contractors, even if some of the old jobs https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/jobs and suppliers are phased out “creative destruction” , and even if workers aren’t gaining wealth quite as fast as the entrepreneurs and business owners. Today, the AI boom is the catalyst for America’s re-industrialization, which is creating many blue-collar and union jobs. Moreover, our country’s economic growth — and indeed, our continued standing as the world leader in technological innovation — largely depends on winning the AI race. And yet, so many policymakers seem hell-bent on obstructing this broad, multi-layered, truly all-in, capital-investment cycle — whether due to, at best, a misguided fear of the future, or at worst, a pathological desire to destroy the “tech oligarchy” and/or undermine the Trump administration, no matter the cost to our country. And that means we as voters often elect opportunists who play on our emotions to get elected and then pander to the shifting whims of a fickle electorate. Tech futurist George Gilder opined, “The central contradiction is that voters generally support American leadership in advanced technology but oppose the industrial infrastructure required to produce it.” In my view, this is why our country’s founders explicitly avoided pure democracy https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/democracy in favor of a constitutional republic — because voters cannot be trusted to make logical voting decisions without falling victim to the manipulation and gaslighting of demagogues and mob mentality, as well as “short-termism.” Moreover, demagoguery is amplified by social media, including professional provocateurs and foreign malign influence campaigns especially from China, which seeks to win the AI race to convince a susceptible electorate to vote against their own best interests. For example, X.com just uncovered a massive Chinese bot farm consisting of roughly 200,000 inauthentic accounts designed to stoke public fear, manipulate public policy, and inflame domestic social tensions around the world — with 200 of them specifically tasked with slowing the blistering pace of American AI development. Turns out, putting Americans at each other’s throats like useful idiots has worked well for our adversaries. And it’s exacerbated by our elected representatives, who are mostly career politicians driven by a self-preservation instinct. Some of our representatives from both parties have introduced legislation https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/legislation for a federal moratorium on new data centers until all the impacts are studied. But this would do nothing to stop the advancement of AI in China. The U.S. can pause and regulate datacenter siting, but we cannot declare a global timeout. This seems similar to what happened to nuclear power in the U.S. According to the Rational Optimist Society on Substack, “We went from one reactor in 1957 to 112 by 1990… The atom was going to desalinate oceans, green deserts and power flying cars. Then the villains arrived. Bureaucrats. Regulations pushed up the cost of atomic energy ninefold… And for the next 30 years America didn’t greenlight a single new plant.” We deliberately ceded nuclear energy dominance to China. Will the same thing happen with AI? By similarly framing AI infrastructure as an environmental and economic threat, foreign influence operations successfully weaponize social media to mobilize dissent and stall our rapid technological progress. Perhaps SpaceX teaming up with NVIDIA on Project Starmind for orbital data centers offers a ray of hope. Or perhaps it will be floating steel data centers like those proposed by Panthalassa, powered by wave energy https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/energy with natural cooling. Or perhaps Microsoft’s concept of a subsea, nitrogen-atmosphere pod. But that’s all in the future. Stay informed.Stay ahead. Join Washington Examiner for unlimited access to the news, analysis, and commentary that matter most. See Options https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/subscribe/digital/ Already a member? Log in https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sign-in/ Click here to login/register your account