GoKawiilToday, I’m talking with Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, about the growing backlash against AI data centers.
Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a yearlong moratorium on data center construction. She attended a protest there organized by a group called Humans First, a conservative grassroots movement focused on combating AI data center build-outs.
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You’ll hear Gaby explain that it was part of a bigger, broader, and bipartisan opposition to data centers. Not only as physical buildings, but as infrastructure that powers an AI boom that takes local jobs and fills feeds with slop.
Data center construction has become a proxy for the public’s feelings about AI: something physical they can aim their fear and frustration at — and even create enough pressure to stop through community organizing and protests.
So I wanted Gaby to talk me through what these protests look like on the ground, from voters whose party affiliations have typically aligned them with big business. You’ll hear Gaby say data centers are scrambling party lines, turning diehard Trump voters into protesters who care about left-coded issues like groundwater contamination and forever chemicals.
It’s a confusing time, and data centers are going to play a major role in electoral politics going forward. So I suspect this won’t be the last we hear from Gaby on movements like Humans First.
Okay: Verge policy reporter Gaby Del Valle on the bipartisan data center backlash. Here we go.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Gaby Del Valle, you’re a policy reporter here at The Verge. Welcome back to Decoder.
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