The Vermont senator co-sponsored a bill that calls for a moratorium on building data centers. He discusses the environmental and economic concerns, and what the government can do. Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the best of The New Yorker in your inbox. The data centers that power artificial intelligence are being built at a rampant pace, and are spurring resistance all over the country. Apart from public concerns about A.I.'s impact on jobs, privacy, and other aspects of life, data centers consume vast amounts of electricity and water.

A.I. Is Now a Major Election Issue As Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's newly elected Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, put it, "People really effing hate data centers." This summer, as the ideologically fractious Democratic primaries begin to recede and the politically pivotal midterm elections edge nearer, candidates and voters alike have had their attention drawn by vast, humming edifices newly constructed on the outskirts of towns. Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former public-health official who finished a deft insurgent campaign by becoming Michigan's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, sounded a theme that helped decide primaries in his state and in Kansas last week. "People really effing hate data centers," he said. That kind of consensus is rare in politics right now.

Communities across the country are trying to keep data centers out. A victory in Maryland shows a blueprint--but no guarantees. Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. You're already subscribed to the aa_Nitish_Pahwa newsletter. You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.

On today's, we unpack OpenAI's ongoing drama, both legal and reputational, and whether these developments could further hurt the company--particularly in its fight against Anthropic. This week on, the team discusses the details behind Apple suing OpenAI over alleged stolen hardware secrets. And the company's headaches don't stop there--a group of OpenAI employees just started a super PAC to advocate for stronger AI guardrails. Plus, New York's first-in-the-nation data center moratorium draws Donald Trump's ire, DOGE stonewalls FOIA requests on its AI use at HUD, and WIRED's Emily Mullin explains the cyclosporiasis outbreak spreading across more than 30 states. DOGE Used AI for Housing Policy. The Government Won't Say How Write to us at [email protected] . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . Last Friday, Apple sued the company basically alleging that OpenAI has been stealing confidential hardware secrets. And now this week, WIRED learned that some OpenAI employees are launching a super PAC to push for AI guardrails. We'll get into all those details and whether these developments could further hurt OpenAI, particularly in its fight against Anthropic. We'll dive into what that means exactly and whether this move could pave the way for other states to follow suit. And we're going to check in on the disease sweeping the nation, cyclosporiasis, which is causing turbo diarrhea across the country . So basically what happened was last Friday, Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly stealing information like unreleased iPhone parts and prototypes, confidential designs, documents about secret projects. That accusation sucks for OpenAI. It's pretty intense, but it gets really messy because Apple is basically saying that this theft, this alleged theft, mostly happened through former employees.

Advocates and lawmakers rally in support of a moratorium on new datacenters in New York at the capitol in Albany in May. Advocates and lawmakers rally in support of a moratorium on new datacenters in New York at the capitol in Albany in May. New York became the first US state to enact a moratorium on new datacenters on Tuesday. Governor Kathy Hochul issued an executive order mandating a one-year statewide pause on the large facilities used to power artificial intelligence products, which she signed at a mid-morning press conference. "As datacenter development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it's my responsibility to take action and lead," Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement.

"We have no choice but to address the challenges created by these massive facilities," New York governor Kathy Hochul said. The executive order will pause construction for one year. New York governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Tuesday enacting a one-year pause on the development of hyperscale data centers, effecting the nation's first statewide data center moratorium. The executive order comes as opposition to data center construction sweeps across the country, putting elected officials under intense pressure to take action. The order specifically pauses state environmental reviews for facilities over 50 megawatts for a year.

Plus: New York has become the first state to enact a data center moratorium. When Anthropic announced last week that it had found a new window into its models' "internal thoughts" as they reason through answers, there was one colleague I had to talk to: senior editor Will Douglas Heaven. Aside from having a PhD in computer science, Will has spent a lot of time digging into what we can say about how AI models work. I spoke with him about what we should take from Anthropic's new (and typically quirky) research. Here's what he had to say . How will AI understand the real world?

'We're up against forces that have all the money in the world': Erin Brockovich on her battle against AI datacentres In 1993, she squeezed a $333m settlement from a Californian energy company in a scandal over contaminated water. Three decades later, she has a new target in her sights - and it's global When Erin Brockovich woke to find 30 emails from people from the same town, she realised something was going on. People email Brockovich all the time because of what happened in 1993, when she was instrumental in suing Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on behalf of residents of the town of Hinkley, California, whose groundwater had been contaminated. The case resulted in a settlement of $333m - then the largest ever payout for a direct-action lawsuit. When she was immortalised by Julia Roberts in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, she became the hero we didn't know we needed, a modern day Joan of Arc.

'There is this overwhelming sense that ed tech companies are deciding what kids learn, and teachers are just being put into this position of tech support instead of driving the decisions about what is best for kids in terms of learning.' 'There is this overwhelming sense that ed tech companies are deciding what kids learn, and teachers are just being put into this position of tech support instead of driving the decisions about what is best for kids in terms of learning.' In October, Kelly Clancy's son received an assignment in sixth grade at a middle school in Brooklyn, New York, to create a science experiment and then ask Google Gemini, an artificial intelligence chatbot, for feedback, she said. Clancy, who has three children in New York City public schools, told the teacher that the bot "is something that just teaches kids that they can have machines do the thinking for them", instead of suggesting: "Let's talk to your partners. What about the science experiment could you improve?" Clancy also founded Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces, a group pushing the city to institute a two-year moratorium on using AI in its public schools.

Seattle has passed a year-long moratorium on the construction of new datacenters. The city council voted unanimously in favor of the temporary ban on Tuesday. A major tech hub whose metro area is home to Amazon and Microsoft, Seattle is the largest US city to have passed such a moratorium as the backlash against AI infrastructure grows across the country. Lawmakers have framed the pause as an opportunity to draft regulations specifically targeting the electricity-hungry datacenters being built nationwide to serve the AI sector, and to protect local residents from environmental risks and rising electricity bills. According to Seattle's mayor, Katie Wilson, the moratorium will also let city officials determine whether datacenters are a "good use of urban land", and potentially impose new stipulations on their approval, such as requiring developers to invest in local transit and housing initiatives in exchange for construction permits.