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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., pushed back against the prospect of imposing a moratorium on artificial intelligence data centers in the U.S., blasting the policy proposal as “China First.”
“The emerging chassis of AI must be built by America. We can put appropriate guardrails in place without handing the win on AI to China. A moratorium is China First,” Fetterman asserted in a post on X.
Fetterman included a screenshot of an Axios headline that read, “Sanders and AOC unveil data center moratorium bill.”
Citing concern over the impacts of AI and the infrastructure that powers it, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., are pushing a bill to pause the construction and expansion of AI data centers around the U.S.
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“Our bills learn from our lack of regulation following the similar rise regarding the internet and demands a new approach to AI: One that protects the American people from Big Tech’s egregious overreach… one that centers prosperity for the many over exorbitant profits for the very few,” Ocasio-Cortez said during a press conference on Wednesday.
During the press conference, the two lawmakers received a question about the notion that an AI data center moratorium would allow China to gain an advantage.
“So I think in a sane world what happens is the leadership of the United States sits down with the leadership in China and leadership around the world to work together so that we don’t go over the edge and create a technology which could perhaps destroy humanity,” Sanders said.
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“Once these companies can be on the up-and-up — providing their own energy, building out and investing in the infrastructure, refusing to free ride off of the American people — then we can continue to develop and explore this technology,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
According to a copy of the proposal posted online by Sanders’ office, the measure would block the construction or upgrade of AI data centers until one or more laws regulating the space have been instituted.
The regulatory law or laws would need to fulfill multiple conditions, including ensuring that “the Federal Government shall review and approve artificial intelligence products before those products are released, for the purpose of ensuring that those products are safe and effective and do not threaten the health and well-being of working families, privacy and civil rights, and the future of humanity.”
The law or laws required to lift the moratorium would also have to ensure that “the economic gains of artificial intelligence and robotics will benefit workers, not just the wealthy owners of Big Tech companies,” the text of the measure indicates.
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Any future law that allows the lifting of the moratorium would also need to ensure that any data center constructed or upgraded after the end of the moratorium “does not increase utility or electricity bills of consumers” or “exacerbate the threat of climate change or harm the environment,” according to the proposal. It would also need to ensure that communities possess the authority to approve or reject AI data center projects that would impact them, ensure that “no government subsidy is provided for” operating, building, or upgrading an AI data center, and ensure that such a facility “creates union jobs with strong labor standards.”
Sanders’ and Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal would also prohibit exporting AI-related computer hardware to nations that do not have such regulations in place.
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