You may have heard that many of us are working very hard to elect Alex Bores to Congress in the NY-12 Democratic primary. Voting begins today. See ny12.org to learn how to vote, and text/call your Manhattanite friends reminding them to do so.
This strategy has some limitations: Alex will be in the minority party for two years, and Congress is ineffective just anyway. More of the value in an Alex victory seems secondary: it shows D voters stand up to pro-AI PAC money and there will now be an AI-literate Congressperson.
So, regarding an alternate strategy, you may have heard everyone hates data centers. It's a become a fervor with a large number of people believing data centers are on the cusp of taking all their energy and water. Given that we also believe that for more doom-related reasons, we may be better off allying with them, than extolling the virtues of data centers while trying to sell technical regulation to them.
I don't "good policy"-level support a data center moratorium, but I can tolerate bits and pieces of a data center moratorium if it strengthens the anti-AI bloc and if I get a stake in it.
For example I might collaborate with a county commissioner relative of mine: **Me: **"Hey, that data center ban you're working on? Mind slipping in a clause that AI companies can't ship untested models to Random County, KA?"
She: " That's more of a state thing is it not?"
Me: "Nah, don't care. Make 'em fight it. I just want people thinking about what an 'untested model' is."
Or consider the ballot measure: for reasons I don't recall, they're used quite a bit in California, and even a failed ballot measure is a way to put a message in front of many people at once. The "data center ban" on XY state's ballot measure ought to include a clause about frontier models. Most people might not know or think about that clause but as long as it's in the same direction as the data center ban, it's fine.