Four AI & economics takeaway figures from yesterday's midterm political festivities in the U.S.
- Data center antipathy ranks among the top four areas of bipartisan agreement in the U.S. And given that one of the factors is household costs, driven in part by utility prices, which, in turn, is driven by data centers, it arguably should rank even higher. We can argue whether this is a legitimate concern, or that Americans are just unhappy that chocolate factories full of GPU-shaped Oompa Loompas are coming to town, but the point stands.
- Economic pessimism is a co-infection alongside AI skepticism. Some of this is driven by higher household prices, but it is also its own thing, with a majority of Americans convinced their children will not have better lives than they did, and that AI will be a factor. Rebranding AI does not solve this problem, nor does Anthropic blithely inserting a note in its most recent S-1 revision about possible runaway RSI improvements.
- AI will hurt society more than help it, thinks a majority of Americans. As we argued in a recent NY Times editorial, this is in part because of the nonsensical connection between healthcare in the U.S. and employment, making job loss more catastrophic than in other countries. It is also because the frontier model companies are taking such a cavalier approach to risk.