It’s become increasingly clear that AI companies are losing the public in their efforts to build enormous and polluting data centers. The topic has turned into a divisive, bipartisan issue looming over the heads of politicians, who’ve largely sided with the corporate interests of Big Tech during this week’s midterm elections in the United States.
The AI industry’s desperate need for a rebrand is more palpable than ever as protests grow and elected officials face the ire of fed up residents at packed community meetings. As such, AI leaders have been pondering how to win over the public, with Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian warning that “we gotta figure out a new narrative on this data center thing” in a tweet earlier this year.
As Axios reports, they’re now reaching for desperate — and borderline comical — measures to recapture the narrative. According to the publication, OpenAI is gearing up to “unleash a policy and PR blitz” as soon as the midterm elections conclude by rebranding data centers with a ludicrously euphemistic moniker: “AI compute campuses.”
“You can try to chase the moment, or seek to inform the moment via the power of ideas,” OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told Axios.
Needless to say, it’s probably as much of a nonstarter as president Donald Trump’s bizarre efforts to rename AI to “super intelligence,” or SI, in a thinly-veiled attempt to test the loyalty of AI leaders.
OpenAI is looking to pave over its fundamentally fractured relationship with the public by arguing that data centers can “transform host communities” and bring “thousands of jobs,” per Axios, in widely disputed claims that conveniently gloss over the fact that those benefits rarely stick around once construction is complete.
The downsides of the AI industry’s gargantuan push to build data centers are near impossible to ignore. Many operators are taking advantage of regulatory loopholes — and an amenable political environment — to rely on diesel generators, sending emissions skyrocketing. They require major swathes of land to be cleared of vegetation, push local residents out, and consume copious amounts of water, much of which can’t be reclaimed. Many also emit a deafening screeching noise that make living near them a living hell.
The upside, especially for rural Americans, are thin. In short, especially with a potential political sea change on the horizon, OpenAI is trying to figure out a way to meet the moment, as Lehane told Axios.
“AI is going to be the issue in 2028,” he added, referring to this week’s midterm elections as a “bit of a movie trailer for what you’re going to see in 2028.”
However, trying to rename data centers to “AI compute campuses,” a term we’re willing to bet will be ignored outright and forgotten almost immediately, isn’t going to change anybody’s mind.
What’s next? Will OpenAI try to rebrand “climate change” as well?
More on data center backlash: Frustrated Resident Blasts the Screeching Sound of a Data Center to a County Official During a Council Meeting, Gets Mocked
