DEBATE OVER AI AND DATA CENTERS HEATS UP

(Full Disclosure: The author of In My Opinion lives about half-a-mile from a proposed data center in Grove City. He has friends and family members who live even closer.)

Our hometown is at the epicenter of the national debate over Artificial Intelligence and the Silicon Valley billionaires who promote it.

The immediate issue for Grove City is the fate of a proposed hyperscale data center on our doorstep. However, the issue is far larger than a single industrial complex. The real issue is the future of our nation.

Data centers, like the one being proposed by a Texas real estate developer for our city, are the beating hearts of AI. Without them, AI cannot exist. Each data center stores billions of bits of information that make AI work.

AI DOWNSIDES

Sure, AI improves some aspects of our lives. But more and more Americans – including our elected officials – are waking up to the many negative sides of AI and data centers. Critics contend:

• AI and data centers have already cost tens of thousands of jobs for average Americans, both white- and blue-collar workers. And that number will grow to millions in the not-too-distant future.
• AI and data centers are key parts of America’s growing surveillance state. This Big Brother network includes everything from Flock cameras to profile algorithms that allow advertisers, government agencies, political consultants and others to know intimate details about virtually anyone who uses a laptop computer or smart phone.
• AI and data centers allowed high-tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and Meta to design addictive platforms on Instagram and Facebook aimed at vulnerable children. These platforms caused a multitude of problems among youngsters, including eating disorders, violence, bullying, self-inflicted injuries and negative self-images. Fifty-one states and territories sued Meta because of the allegations. Meta settled the lawsuit recently for $17.1 billion and guarantees the company will institute reforms.
• AI and data centers consume vast amounts of electricity and water, resulting in skyrocketing utility-rate increases for homeowners and other industries.
• Low-frequency noise from air-cooled data centers, like the one being proposed for Grove City, causes sleeping disorders and mental issues. Data centers operate full-throttle 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 
• Data center power sources like natural gas fuel cells cause extensive air pollution that threatens residents’ long-term health. Also, moderately sized nuclear reactors are being tested to provide on-site power for data centers. 
• Sprawling data centers depress homeowners’ property values.
• Data centers take up massive amounts of land, but their highly automated operations produce relatively few jobs. Grove City’s proposed data center would be located on 310 acres but produce fewer than 200 permanent jobs. In contrast, Mount Carmel Medical Center on N. Meadows Drive is on 67 acres and employs 1,500 workers and 400 doctors.
• Fast-evolving technology will make today’s data centers obsolete within 5-10 years. These huge industrial complexes will then be abandoned, leaving environmental disasters in their wake. 
• Record-breaking profits from AI and data centers allow a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires to buy off elected officials in both parties to further their oftentimes weird political agendas. For example, PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel warns that the Anti-Christ could soon take over the world. The most radical of these clueless billionaires believe nation states and democracies will collapse, and a new class of high-tech masters will emerge to rule the world. 
• Finally – and most frighteningly – many experts, including Silicon Valley elites, warn that rogue AI agents could eventually pose an existential threat to humankind by hacking into nations’ most sensitive security systems and causing other havoc.

OPPOSITION RISES

Faced with these potential downsides and more, Grove City residents rose up and besieged City Council members earlier this year with objections. The grassroots groundswell resulted in the Council on June 1 voting 6-1 to impose a one-year moratorium on consideration of any data center. Councilman Randy Holt was the lone dissenter.

But some local data-center critics remained wary.

The moratorium will end next year, they noted. And Headwaters Site Development, the Dallas company promoting the Grove City complex, is continuing to lobby for the data center. The company has deep pockets, critics warn. Headwaters Development is affiliated with Appollo Global Management, a trillion-dollar international private equity firm. The investment giant was co-founded by Leon Black, one of pedophile Jeffery Epstein’s biggest financial backers. Les Wexner, the New Albany billionaire who has been one of central Ohio’s most outspoken advocates for AI and data centers, also was a major financial supporter of Epstein.

CITY CHARTER AMENDMENT

Local critics wanted a more iron-clad assurance to curtail Headwater Development’s plans. So, critics proposed an amendment to the City Charter. The citizen-initiated amendment will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot as Issue 28. It would require voter approval of large industrial complexes like data centers.

Issue 28 opponents claim the amendment would have all kinds of dire consequences, including an end to economic growth in our city. Mayor Ike Stage’s administration has joined the opposition – at taxpayers’ expense.

A public relations firm hired by the administration through a $72,000 taxpayer-financed unbid contract is assisting the Issue 28 opposition. The company has helped line up opposition speakers and assisted in developing strategy and messaging aimed at defeating Issue 28, public records reveal.

And the Stage administration – again at taxpayer expense – recently mailed anti-Issue 28 literature to homeowners throughout the city. More taxpayer-funded mailings by the Stage administration are expected.

Amendment supporters have countered by asserting that Issue 28 merely flips decision-making involving large industrial developments from a handful of City Hall officials to the voters.  

But they are at a distinct disadvantage. Issue 28 supporters cannot use taxpayer dollars to promote their campaign. Their grassroots effort is funded through small individual donations.

THREE COUNCILMEN KILL COMPROMISE

Charter amendment leaders attempted to resolve many of the differences between Issue 28 supporters and opponents. After lengthy negotiations with City Hall officials, Issue 28 leaders offered a compromise version of their proposed Charter amendment. The new version would have eliminated many of the objections voiced by amendment opponents. 

But the compromise failed to get the super-majority of five votes necessary to replace the original version. Only four Council members – Mohamed Omar, Jodi Burroughs, Melissa Anderson and George Holinger – voted in favor of the compromise. Councilmen Randy Holt, Ted Berry and Alan Sturm voted against it. 

Political insiders report that the three councilmen, Stage and his City Hall allies feared the compromise version would be overwhelmingly approved by voters in November. Stage and his allies believe the original version will be less popular, according to insiders.

But Stage & Company might have miscalculated. Polls show voters throughout the nation are growing increasingly distrustful of politicians and their well-heeled special-interest buddies.

The behind-the-scenes maneuverings by Holt, Berry, Sturm and the 81-year-old mayor are the sorts of good-old-boy politicking that Issue 28 supporters believe their Charter Amendment will help curtail.  After all, Issue 28 supporters note that their campaign theme is People Over Politics.

Two things are certain: The debate in Grove City over AI and data centers will continue until at least Nov. 3. And the national debate will continue for much longer.