How tech became the villain of the US midterms

'The public distaste for the AI industry extends to its leaders.' 'The public distaste for the AI industry extends to its leaders.' The campaign ad begins with a clear, idyllic stream that suddenly turns sludge-brown as two concrete datacenters slam onto its banks. Our farmland," a deep-voiced narrator says. "Because Brent Taylor wrote the law allowing datacenters to take over Tennessee." The attack ad, paid for by the Democrat-aligned Three Star Pac and targeting a Tennessee Republican congressional candidate, is one of more than 150 midterm election campaign commercials across the US focused on datacenters or the artificial intelligence industry. At debates and at rallies, in mailers and online ads, the burgeoning AI industry has taken center stage, as both Republican and Democratic candidates try to convince voters that their opponents will put the unpopular facilities in voters' backyards.