Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has called for a halt to the construction of artificial intelligence (AI) data center, claiming the technology is developing too quickly and is creating environmental problems.
“I will be pushing for a moratorium on the construction of data centers that are powering the unregulated sprint to develop & deploy AI,” said Sanders on his Senate office’s X account. “The moratorium will give democracy a chance to catch up, and ensure that the benefits of technology work for all of us, not just the 1%.”
In a video accompanying his posting, Sanders acknowledged that “AI and robotics are the most transformative technologies in the history of humanity and will have a profound impact on the lives of every man, woman and child in our country.” But he also insisted “the wealthiest people on Earth” were pushing this technology and claimed that “these very, very rich men want more wealth and more power.”
On Sanders’ personal X account, another video hosted by Simon Rosenblum-Larson, an organizer with Friends of Bernie Sanders, that pointed to alleged skyrocketing electric bills and excessive water usage by data centers that will only create relatively few jobs in the communities where they are built.
“In the next two years, AI data centers will not only cause electric bills to soar, but are expected to generate the same emissions as driving over 300 billion miles — or 1,600 round trips to the sun from Earth,” Sanders wrote. “We need a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers.”
Photo via Sen. Sanders’ social media pages
