The blue wave that swept the United States in the midterm election held on Tuesday (3) and returned control of Congress to the Democratic Party was not only a message against the way Donald Trump is governing the country, but also the realization that the population is highly wary of the power of the big techs, especially with the advances in artificial intelligence.
In addition to the victories – some unexpected – of Democratic candidates in races for state governorships and seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate, voters were asked in various regions to weigh in on whether to place restrictions on the installation of data centers that would support the expansion of the tech giants. And the result was clarifying.
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Data compiled by Redbud Consulting, a Washington-based research and data science firm, shows that voters opposed the development of data centers in 46 of 47 regional contests over restrictions.
The exception was the small Harwood, a town of fewer than 1,000 residents in North Dakota. They rejected a measure that would have given residents greater influence over the construction of large projects in the city, such as AI data centers.
Anxiety and Skepticism
For Graham Brookie, Vice President of Programs and Technology Strategy at the Atlantic Council, the deep anxiety Americans feel about technology and the skepticism toward the titans building it were laid bare during the midterm elections and in the results.
“A NBC News exit poll revealed that 56% of voters said that AI and the associated infrastructure were a ‘crucial or important’ factor in their vote for Congress. There are few reasons to believe that these concerns won’t remain fully exposed in the next Congress and at the state level in California, Texas, Ohio and elsewhere,” he commented.
The challenge, according to the expert, is that, for the U.S. to compete effectively in the AI era, the country must address this significant trust deficit that the American public has in technology.
He said that this AI skepticism transcended party lines, with many Republican candidates — from Michigan to Texas — advocating slowing the build-out of AI infrastructure or increasing regulation of the sector.
Similarly, there is a growing number of bipartisan policy proposals on AI safety in the current Congress — such as the Frontier Act or the AI Kill Switch Act — that are likely to reappear in some form in the next Congress.
“The main point is that, despite the increasing use and integration of AI into daily life across the country, surveys show that 75% of Americans view AI with fear or concern, rather than excitement, especially when it comes to accessibility, jobs, education, the environment, safety and many other issues. These concerns are especially prevalent among young people.”
He also noted that the election came one week after one of the largest technology-driven selloffs erased almost a trillion dollars in market value, due to reports of disappointing profits in the AI industry.
“A large part of this sell-off was driven by the unstable confidence that the record indebtedness and investment fueling the AI industry would translate into sustainable revenue, even if building the infrastructure takes time and becomes a political flashpoint,” he said.
The finding is that AI has come to stay as a general-use technology, but it is also increasingly a determinant factor in geopolitical competition. “As AI development outpaces the ability of institutions to manage it, it is high time for a coherent national dialogue about the impact of AI and how U.S. leadership in AI should be,,” he added. “This debate will be on full display in the next Congress.”
Market Plunge
The negative market behavior intensified after the midterm results. The Nasdaq, heavily dependent on the performance of the tech sector, closed Thursday’s session with a sharp decline, recording its largest one-day drop in the last 19 months. The selling wave erased $3 trillion in market value from S&P 500 companies.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks the 30 largest semiconductor companies, plunged more than 12%, while Nvidia’s shares fell more than 9%.
The defeated Donald Trump seized the opportunity once again to politicize the market’s performance. On his Truth Social platform, he commented that “the stock market suffered one of its worst days in history in reaction to the election results.”
“It is very sad to watch! It took a lot of work to bring us to a level that no one had ever seen before, and then this. (…) Remember: it wasn’t the Republicans, it was the ‘Dumocrats’ [a pejorative pun he has used for Democrats that means something like “dumb Democrats”].
“Nevertheless, fear not: soon, in one way or another, we will be BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN EVER,” he concluded, in all uppercase.
