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US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is calling for a "moratorium" on new data center construction over fears that unregulated AI will disrupt society.
"The moratorium will give democracy a chance to catch up, and ensure that the benefits of technology work for all of us, not just the 1%," he tweeted.
In a video, the senator acknowledged that AI and next-generation robotics are transformative technologies that will have a "profound" impact on people's lives. However, he also warned that the same technologies threaten to disrupt society by replacing jobs traditionally held by humans.
“If AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income?” he asked. "Very few members of Congress are seriously thinking about this.” He did not specify how long a moratorium might last.
Sanders is also concerned that chatbots and next-generation AI will further isolate younger Americans, causing them to only interact “with their devices” instead of real people. “Is that the kind of future you want? Well, not me,” he said.
What’s clear is that AI will mainly benefit the top tech companies and their leadership, Sanders adds. “I think that these very, very rich men want even more wealth and even more power,” he said, calling out Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
Giant computing facilities promise to unleash even more powerful AI applications that advance medical and scientific research. However, they have faced complaints from residents over electricity costs, noise, and environmental damage. Some even faced eminent domain battles.
"AI data centers require a massive amount of electricity and water," Sanders wrote in a Dec. 2 op-ed. "A relatively small AI data center can consume more electricity than 80,000 homes. A large one, like the $165 billion data center that OpenAI and Oracle are building in Abilene, Texas, will use as much electricity as 750,000 homes. Meta is building a data center in Louisiana the size of Manhattan that will use as much electricity as 1.2 million homes."
The Trump administration has backed new plans for data centers to ensure the US leads in AI. Last week, President Trump signed an executive order to challenge state-level laws.
Still, some Congressional lawmakers have been moving to regulate AI. A bipartisan bill from Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) would require US companies to report AI-related job losses in an effort to track the technology’s impact on employment. Hawley and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) also introduced legislation to ban chatbot companions for minors.