Elected Officials Are Facing a Reckoning Over Their Collusion with Big AI
Across the country, Americans from all stripes are calling on politicians to dump Big Tech.
Stephanie Jordan and Mary Armas
A majority of Americans want to put a stop to the profit-driven artificial intelligence (AI) agenda being pushed onto all of us by a handful of powerful tech corporations. Across the country, people are building a movement to protect our water, our air, our children, our schools and our jobs from Big Tech. We are not afraid of AI or technology, we’re just not buying the version of AI these corporations are peddling.
We come to this fight from different places and perspectives. Stephanie is fighting against the construction of a nuclear weapons data center in Michigan that will reshape her community. Mary is a high school student watching AI hijack her classroom and her peers’ mental health. Our experiences are different, but we share a common conviction: we must stop Big Tech.
In order to do this, we have to hold politicians accountable and we have to force corporate money out of our elections. That’s why this summer, during the August congressional recess, more than a thousand of us across the country participated in dozens of
rallies and protests to demand that our elected officials — from the halls of Congress to city councils — dump Big Tech and the developers powering the AI data center buildout.
In Ypsilanti, Michigan, more than 100 families, longtime residents, and young people gathered at North Hydro Park on August 8 to protest the construction of a classified nuclear weapons data center. For the past two years, members of the community from across the political spectrum have repeatedly told the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory they don’t want this facility in their quiet rural community, which puts them at risk for pollution and security threats. This type of undemocratic data center expansion to benefit tech companies serves as a horrifying template for the future of billionaire bullying, fascism and war for the entire country.
Following public pushback, Ypsilanti local elected officials were moved to stand with the community. The Ypsilanti Board of Trustees unanimously passed a 6-month moratorium on the construction of large electric utility expansion to slow construction on August 18 and the local water board has said it won’t provide water or sewage for data centers for up to a year. And earlier this month, the Ypsilanti City Council preliminarily passed a 60-day emergency data center moratorium (though it still will require a final vote before implementation).
But our fight is far from over. The University of Michigan recently confirmed it will build its data center in Hydro Park, nearby a local elementary school. University of Michigan administrators claim they’ve engaged the community, but last September peaceful protestors were detained for trespassing at a “community open house event” to discuss the data center on the University of Michigan campus, banning six protestors — including one dressed as a robot — from the campus.
The people of Ypsilanti gathered at Hydro Park in August to urge members of Congress to support local governments, like Ypsilanti’s, to ensure that powerful institutions and Big Tech can’t overwhelm small towns with lawyers and lawsuits they can’t afford. The message from Ypsilanti residents was made clear by the chant: “we don’t want this data center here, we don’t want it anywhere.”
In Union County, New Jersey, meanwhile, scores of young people like Mary marched to protest Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. on August 13 for taking thousands of dollars from Big Tech AI firms that are powering chatbots wreaking havoc among young people, as well as the surveillance technology that’s being used by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport residents. Young people are concerned about the way AI is transforming their education, friendships, and job prospects, and they see how AI is supercharging deportations that could upend their and their neighbors’ lives.
In Hazleton, Penn., dozens of people rallied in front of Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s office on August 12, calling on him to oppose the expansion of energy-sucking data centers in the state and to reject political contributions from Big Tech billionaires like Peter Thiel. Young people worried about AI’s impacts protested and were arrested at OpenAI’s new lobbying office in Washington, D.C., on August 10. And in New York City, more than 300 people rallied in front of the Palantir office on August 12, calling on Congress to take a stand against the company that’s profiting off of ICE’s mass deportation agenda. That’s just a few of the more than 40 actions that took place across the country this August.
Big Tech companies and their executives are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the midterm elections, both through direct contributions to candidates and to Super PACs, like Leading the Future, in order to make sure they can keep shaping our future. They are spending in congressional races — both in the general elections and in both parties’ primaries — and are beginning to spend more at state level races as data center and AI regulatory debates become key issues in this year’s midterms.
The majority of Americans oppose data centers, and Democratic and Republican candidates are being forced to take a stand, even as President Trump remains resolutely pro data center, writing on his Truth Social site that those who oppose data centers want to be “backwards and poor.” The AI industry wants to sell us on data centers, but the hundreds of millions of dollars AI billionaires are spending this election cycle are already beginning to backfire.
We are not “backwards” for wanting more and better for our communities, and we’re taking back our democracy to build the humanity-centered future we want to see. Candidates are winning voters’ support by disavowing Big Tech, criticizing AI and promising to stop data center growth. Just look at the Michigan primaries, where Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary by running a campaign focused on getting money out of politics, stopping ICE and slowing data center growth.
This is our power in action. The rallies, town halls and barbeques we organized this summer are just the beginning. As we head into the midterms this November, we’re going to make our voices heard.
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Stephanie Jordan is a member of Stop the Data Center Ypsilanti, MI.
Mary Armas is a member of Make the Road Action NJ.
