Curing cancer. Reducing carbon emissions. Maximizing business efficiency. To achieve all this and develop untold social goods, artificial intelligence “accelerationsts” at companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI believe their industry has a duty to speed ahead toward superintelligence, or AI that’s far superior to humans at most tasks. Key to that revolution will be the build-out of data centers.
Meanwhile, a technical transformation of the workplace already appears to be underway. The nation’s largest employer, Walmart, said that because of its AI implementation, hiring will remain flat over the next three years even if revenues rise. Every business—not just the big ones—will eventually reckon with some version of that transformation. Whoever wields the technology best will get an edge. Regulators, in turn, must find forward-looking ways of controlling the excesses of the winners while mitigating the hardship of the losers—and fast.
Sen. Mark Kelly fears that the biggest losers could be working-class people. The Arizona Democrat’s “AI for America” plan, arguably the most comprehensive Democratic answer to the Trump administration’s pro-industry “AI Action Plan,” would create an industry-financed “AI Horizon Fund” to pay for energy-grid upgrades and workforce reskilling.
But while Kelly’s plan is admirable …
