The middle distribution of Gen Z’s feelings about AI range from apprehension to downright hatred. Despite the fact that more than half of Gen Z living in the U.S. uses AI regularly, according to a recently released Gallup poll, less than a fifth feel hopeful about the technology. About a third says the technology makes them angry. And nearly half say it makes them afraid.
Gallup’s own senior education researcher, Zach Hrynowski, blamed the bad vibes at least partially on the dwindling job market. The oldest Zoomers, he told Axios, are the angriest, as they are “acutely aware” of the ability of a technology to transform cultural norms without a second thought, unlike a Gen Xer who is trained to see new technology as toys and are still “playing around with AI.”
Indeed, job prospects for the recently graduated Gen Z are abysmal; Bloomberg just reported that 43% of young graduates are “underemployed,” meaning taking on jobs that require less education than they have.
[…]
This is not just a Gen Z problem, either. In the American heartland, data centers are being proposed at a pace that local communities never anticipated and for which they were never asked permission, and they’re increasingly pushing back.
The numbers are serious. According to a report from 10a Labs’ Data Center Watch, at least $18 billion worth of data center projects have been blocked and another $46 billion delayed over the past two years owing to local opposition. At least 142 activist groups across 24 states are now actively organizing to block data center construction and expansion. A Heatmap Pro review of public records found that 25 data center projects were canceled following local pushback in 2025 alone, four times as many as in 2024, with 21 of those cancellations occurring in the second half of the year as electricity costs grew.
The concerns driving this resistance are less about existential AI risk and more about typical kitchen-table complaints; communities consistently cite higher utility bills, water consumption, noise, impacts on property values, and green space destruction as their primary objections. Water use is mentioned as a top concern in more than 40% of contested projects, according to a Heatmap Pro review of public records.
The numbers are serious. According to a report from 10a Labs’ Data Center Watch, at least $18 billion worth of data center projects have been blocked and another $46 billion delayed over the past two years owing to local opposition.
Oh, the poor, poor money! Can’t nobody pleeeease help the capital?
LMAO
I don’t understand why they just don’t charge AI data centers higher costs for electricity, so they are a net benefit to the area.
Many local government’s aren’t on the home rule, they follow some form of the Dillon Rule. This applies to utilities and land use. For some local areas they are required by some degree to follow the State’s allocation and billing of utilities to remain classified as a public utility in the State.
In many areas our legal framework at the State and local level were never made to handle what’s coming down the pipe with new advances. This is why I always indicate that data centers and their impact need to be addressed at the local level. That’s why I think Federal regulation is the wrong step for the building part of AI. This is very much a local and/or State level that needs to desperately be answered there.
The good news is that we see more people who are involved with their local government with this issue. But this underlying issue has been one since the 1970s, it’s just that these companies have hired firms that are incredibly well versed in the shortcomings of local ordinances and State law. It’s super difficult to patch up flaws in the laws when they’re being exploited at rapid fire pace.
How does it benefit the area? The money goes to the power cartels either way, and the data centers harm the environment and the people living near them regardless of the electricity cost.
How the fuck is this what radicalizes people
How the fuck is this what radicalizes people
If you watch that Altman jerk, he actually tries to become the ruler of the world by means of his own tech.
Tell people they’re not going to have any way to get food or shelter and that they’ll be forever locked out of any security or safety and they get angry.
I think the online rhetoric around AI has been way more apocalyptic than the more vague and abstract political stuff. So Trump raped some kids, that’s really bad but that’s not something people feel the need to go out and risk their lives over.
But data centers are going to steal all your water and there will be killbots patrolling the streets? All jobs will be taken away and everyone will be reduced to serfs or killed as surplus population? Drum that into a sufficiently mentally fragile subset of the population long and hard enough and you’ll get them worked up enough to feel like they need to strike first.
It’s a fact AI is effectively stealing water supplies, FaceDeer. Don’t be so glib about it.
And the extreme rhetoric comes from the industries themselves, including Sam Altman’s own mealy mouth. And from industry shills who get good money to pretend that the thing is powerful and dangerous and worth investing in. Yudkowsky, Hinton, etc.
@tonytins All to fight software… seems weird to me when there are people who rule the software
Huh? I don’t get it…
He’s saying you can take down 100 data centers…
Or one CEO.
Not that I’D ever advocate or cheer for violence, no sir.
CEOs are easily replaceable.
Not when the last CEO was publicly executed by an angry mob. That would not attract top talent…
Theoretically, both could be done. Theoretically.
