An AI data center in Michigan could affect the midterm elections
What if I told you this random construction site could actually sway the midterm elections? It's going to be an AI data center, one of many powering the AI boom across the country. In Michigan alone, there are more than a dozen of them currently planned. These are multi billion dollar projects coming to rural towns across the state. But just one of them has started construction. We're going to go to Saline Township, which is a tiny little community in southeast Michigan. With this data center coming in, it's really hard to understand the scale of these data centers until you have to drive past it. I mean, it's many, many, many football fields. This thing is going to totally change the character of the landscape of the township. In terms of size, it's 250 acres and it's being built for tech giant Oracle. In terms of how much power it needs, it's enough to power a million homes. And people here are really upset. The company's developer says that this is going to be good for the town. It's going to be environmentally friendly, bring jobs, it's going to bring money into the school system. But a lot of the residents don't believe that. The residents feel like they' bulldozed and overrun. I see both sides just not listening to the little people. It just feels like there's really nobody rooting for us. I'm confused. For this next election cycle, I really don't know where I will put my alliances. This is a new force in our political landscape, and it's just this live wire that we don't quite know what effect it's going to have. This is something that's happening all over the country. But in Michigan, it's particularly important because in these midterm elections in November, Michigan is a critical battleground state. But the Democratic and Republican parties haven't really caught on yet. Sort of like the political equivalent of the proverbial $100 bill lying on a sidewalk. And we don't know which party's going to pick it up.
Sandy Rios: Well, certainly we're in the situation we've never been in before, and there are lots of primaries going, going on right now in a lot of states. The issue of AI and these data centers which will power this huge growth of AI, which President Trump has supported, and he's brought businesses in to spend millions and billions of dollars in our, in our, in our country. So, but people are confused. Like there's really bad reports of, of the data centers taking so much electricity and water that it's, it's, a burden on the communities. And so. And yet we know that AI, certainly artificial intelligence had a huge part to do with things like doge, where they went through the entire United States government, all the agencies, and found spending problems and were able to eliminate, programs and even agencies and certainly a lot of employees. so we know that AI is capable of doing many good things like research, scientific research and medical developments. but what about our privacy? And what about what these AI companies do, like a chat GPT and all of that? What about the harms to our children and our privacy? Well, we're going to discuss all of that, with an expert today, and the hard questions, the good things and the bad. And I think it will be very beneficial. It certainly was beneficial to me to talk to Joel Thayer, because he's an expert from A to Z. I'll introduce him more thoroughly when, when he, when he joins me in a few minutes. But Joel is an expert. I heard him, ah, brief a group just last week. And I was so impressed because a lot of times, for me anyway, when I've heard AI experts speak, I, I always feel there's a smugness like, like a disregard for genuine concerns of people like you and me. But, Joel is not like that. He's not a wonk, although he is. He's brilliant. You'll. You'll hear his bio, and he's been very deeply involved in all of this. But I sensed in him a heart for the concerns and a heart to make things right. So I think this is going to be a really good, balanced discussion of the future of AI and all these data centers. And maybe it will help some of you, to understand more thoroughly. It certainly has helped me. And so we'll do that.
Most women are ordering abortion pills, and it is two pills
But first, for whatever reason, the abortion pill is still legal. I know that Health and Human Services is doing testing and they're trying to bring, some research to prove to the skeptics how dangerous it is to women. I think they're going to find a lot of proof if we don't have obstruction, which is always danger. But meanwhile, back at the ranch, most women are ordering these abortion pills, and it is two pills through the mail to first kill, then expel their babies. And this can happen at any stage of pregnancy. It's so grotesque, it's really hard to believe. And many states, this is fine, man. You can do whatever you want. and PreBorn, you might have heard the last time. Dan Steiner, who's the, CEO of PreBorn, told us on this show. That they have women coming into the clinics. This happens frequently, holding their dead bodies of their baby, you know, begging for help. it's just, these are the things that are not being reported, you know, the newspaper. You can't trust them. I'm sure we've told you that before. You can't trust them. You've got to find a voice that you can trust. I hope I'm that for you. But the abortion pills are still available, and this is still happening. And so preborn really is the redeeming alternative for women who are considering abortion, because they get an ultrasound. And when young moms or older moms, see their babies in the womb, they usually just say, oh, I can't do that. I can't terminate their life. And so it's just. I always think it's just God's way. It's a beautiful way of stopping abortion. It's $28 for one ultrasound. It's $28. And all you have to do is go to preborn.com sandy. That's preborn.com sandy. And make your most generous donation. All right, well, on today's edition of Sandy Rios, 24 7, Joel Thayer, who is a senior fellow for AI and emerging technology, at America First Policy Institute and is also the president of the Digital Process Institute. He's a tech and telecom attorney. He's got such. And he used to work for the FTC under Chairman Ajit Pai. his, bio was really long and impressive, and he knows what he's talking about. So we are very, very lucky to have him.
Facebook is building a massive data center in Louisiana; some consumer advocates not satisfied
Today on this edition of Sandy Rios, 24 7, from American Family Radio, Sandy Rios. We are not called to be nice. We are often called to be confrontational. And here with me in D.C. is Fox News contributor Sandy Rios.
Sandy Rios: I think the most important thing we need to demonstrate to our children is genuineness, that we actually believe what we say we believe. Longtime Fox News contributor Sandy Rios. Thanks very much for being with us.
Sandy Rios: Seek justice. Not social justice, but God's justice. What's right and what's wrong. Cindy Rios is with the American Family Association, a pro life radio talk show host.
Sandy Rios: We've got to say this is the line. Life is sacred. Director of Governmental affairs for the American Family Association.
Sandy Rios: Step up, speak up. Say something, do something. It's being called one of the largest investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure in the world, and it's being built in one of the poorest areas of Louisiana. Louisiana. That is opportunity. That is how you live people out of poverty. That's how, that's how you fix a broken state. Facebook parent company Meta is more than doubling the size of its data center in Richland Parish, a $50 billion project. So Big Ten power plants need to be built to supply it with electricity. The governor praising the economic impact it's going to create. 7,500 construction jobs, more than a thousand permanent high paying jobs, nearly 1900 additional indirect jobs. The data center could eventually use six times more power per day than the entire city of NewSong Orleans on the hottest day of summer. Meta says it will pay for the new power plants and for upgrades to roads and water systems. We want to be the very best partners that this state could possibly have. The company says it struck a deal that will bring down local homeowners electric bills. But some consumer advocates not satisfied. It's not just residents in Richland Parish. It's all entergy Louisiana customers that bear the risk of this project. Critics also pointing to the lucrative state tax breaks given to Meta. But supporters say tax revenue from the project is already changing lives, helping to fund bonuses of up to $50,000 for local teachers. My retirement because of the bonus has just doubled. My daughter's not going to have to worry. Hannah Bata, ABC News, NewSong York.
Sandy Rios speaks with Joel Thayer about artificial intelligence
Sandy Rios: All right, Sandy Rios with you. And I think, this is such a confusing issue. In some states it seems to be working, and in other states there seem to be problems, concerns about water and electricity and the costs. And of course the overall concern about AI, is just, what, what do we need this for? What is it going to accomplish? Are they going to invade our privacy more? Will people lose jobs? All of that are questions that we ask. And, and so, I've asked Joel Thayer, who is the senior fellow for AI and Emerging Technology Policy Policy at the America First Policy Institute. He's also the president of the Digital Progress Institute and is a tech and telecom attorney. And he comes to us from Washington. He also worked for Chairman Ajit Pai, who was the FCC chairman for a long time. He did some great things. And, Joel worked with him. And Joel, before we get into AI, didn't you kind of lead the charge against preventing Huawei, which was a Chinese entity, from, coming into this country?
Joel Thayer: I wouldn't say I love the charge that was the good chairman. but I certainly was very supportive of that. And of course am I. And a very proud card carrying, China hawk.
Sandy Rios: Well, join the club. I've actually been to China several times, Joel, and I love the Chinese people, but, we're in great danger in every area. you and I both know that. I've talked about it this mic, so we don't have to explain, but we do have to explain AI, because people don't really understand, I would say, even as an introduction, none, of us can get away from it now. You just can't. Your phones update and there you have it, and it takes over and it does things you don't want it to do. That's my experience. I guess it does some good things. But right now, I'm not crazy about it, Joel, but I feel like it's inevitable.
Why do we need massive AI centers to power all of this AI
So let's talk about this. I think the question would be just basic. Why do we need these massive AI centers to power all of this AI? Why do we need that? Why do Americans need that?
Joel Thayer: So there's the technical answer, which is that AI requires a lot of what's called compute. And so compute is just a fancy word that says we need a lot of data, we need to house that data, we need to be able to, use it in an efficient way. And so it's. That requires a lot of energy, requires a lot of special facilities. Now, what goes into that compute, I think really matters for the American consumer. And this goes back to something that we heard in the segment before, which is, you know, it's a bit of a mixed bag on the one end. It, you know, there are a lot of scientific advantages that we can take that, that it can lead the way on, especially when it comes to medical advancements, when it comes to, finding more energy efficiencies and creating abundance in that way. But of course, there are other applications that are very troubling. I mean, we're seeing, you know, how chatbots are intervening in the parent child dynamics. And so there's a. I think what's been happening here is that there's been this complete, and I think you're right, that there's this complete misunderstanding of, what I actually is how new it is. And frankly, a lot of these tech companies are just rebranding their obviously very candid, their crappy technology as like this new innovative thing. So. But that doesn't, that shouldn't take away from the underlying infrastructure that's required in order to do this. To be very clear, we talked, we talked a little bit about, you know, our China hawk bona fides. This is actually something that is incredibly important to consider as we start thinking about this infrastructure. Because every technology has a yin and a yang. There's A light and a dark to all of it. And the, the role of the government should be to really emphasize and promote the light side of A.I. and what it can do. And that is where these data centers can really make the difference outside of just the actual jobs that it can provide in the immediate future. There. This technology can actually serve humanity in the best way possible. But we have to orient it that way.
People really resisted cars, Joel says
Sandy Rios: Okay, well, let's. We're going to talk about that. I want us. This is how my mind thinks. I know I wasn't there, but I do love history. people really resisted cars. They were loud, annoying, they scared the horses. You know, people really did not like cars. And yet, of course, cars. Do I need to explain? Cars changed the lives of, people all over the globe. it opened up travel and commerce and good things for families, gave them freedom. And then phones. I think people were afraid of phones, too, and radios and receiving all those things. It was just very weird. And then I think even more recently, and not that I know a lot about this, Joel, because I'm not a technology person, I wouldn't even dare to pose as one, but I have to work with it. 3G and 4G was resisted, wasn't it?
Joel Thayer: Yes, that's absolutely right. And so there is always this awkward stage that, comes into play whenever a new technology is at the precipice. And we're at the point where there's mass adoption that's being foisted upon us. And let's be very clear, technology, much like modernity, only goes one direction. It only goes forward. And it's really hard to put the genie back in the bottle once it's out. And right now, AI is. It's basically out. we're incorporating it in almost every facet of our economy. And that's not just your phone. That also goes to water mains. We're talking about electric grids.
Every legislator should be very aware of how data centers impact the individual consumer
But with that, to me, I like that you use the issue of, Are you pointing to the use case of the car? I think that, even more, striking example is, going back to the trains and trains, actually.
Sandy Rios: That's right. That's right.
Joel Thayer: So. So, I mean, like, cars were just, you know, that was more of like the direct consumer, means it conveyed. But trains ultimately opened up the door. But look, it required a lot of stuff. It required rails. It required a lot of different conversations that had to happen. you know, railroads had to be negotiated by town to town, on where it was supposed to Go and how it was going to be used. You want to talk about a loud engine. I mean just anyone that's ever been next to a train station and I, you're probably hearing me lament this a bit because I live right next to one. It is a it is a massive nuisance. But at the same time it offers so many positive aspects to it that you, that I think the problem we have when it comes to having these conversations is, is frankly, where did the rails go in AI? And really that's what the data centers are. The data centers are the underlying infrastructure, much like the towers. The cell towers are the underlying infrastructure for 3G and 4G. They're not pretty to look at. They're not. I mean they're. I mean I think towers, don't really buzz the same way a data center buzz. But there are legitimate concerns here. Much like there are legitimate concerns if you live next to a railroad station or just a railroad in general really comes down to well, how do we make sure that we are one acknowledging that this, that AI is coming and it can do all these good things and look all the applications I think is a separate question. But if it requires this type of infrastructure, how do we be able, how are we able to place it in a place that doesn't actually impact the data, the everyday happenings of the local population? And I think that's where things get lost a bit in the conversation where there's all this conversations of how all this conversation surrounded on the negative aspect of data centers and what they do. And there is like this almost avoidant aspect of it where people just don't want to. People almost forget that, you know, states have a role here and states actually have more authority and also they have the ability to turn this infrastructure into a boon for the local economy without actually hurting their local population. And there are, there are just use case after use case of that being true. And so what I would strongly encourage is one, every legislator should be very hyper aware of how these data centers impact the individual consumer and at the same time figure out narrowly tailored ways of addressing those concerns that are serious concerns. If these data centers are raising the rates on a local population, that should not be on the consumer to pay that, that should be on directly on the tech companies. The tech companies should be the ones that they're using the power. It is just basic equity to have them pay for that. If they are raising the rates on water usage or limited amount of water usage, they should be Able to to compensate for all that usage and also supplement it where possible. The other thing that I think gets lost here is that states have now I mean look, I think you and I both know that our electric grid is not great. It's not even, it's not very good.
Sandy Rios: Very vulnerable. Very vulnerable. Yeah.
Joel Thayer: Yeah. Especially just old to the surges or just I mean we all experienced the heat recently. I mean that means a lot of air conditioners are getting turned on and there's a lot more infrastructure getting leveraged on these, on this archaic system. Well guess what if you have a data ah, center in there, there's a a lot of these data centers requirements agreements are also including an upgrade to the local grid which means that the individual state no longer has to be burdened with being the sole provider of you know, of that upgrade. Now they can actually leverage their, their bargaining position to say hey if you want to use this and you're going to put some pressure on this electric grid, you need to upgrade this stuff like this. That should not be on us. You're the one changing the dynamics here. you, you the tech companies. So this is a real opportunity for us not just to only on the one end, you know, get some real hardcore concrete jobs your segment and also alluded to the amount of jobs that will get created out of this. But we're also talking about an upgrade of all of our utilities and it'll be all paid for by the by the tech companies, not us. And you, you see that actually play out with with Texas. Texas recently just came out with a list of things that says hey this is if you want to build a data center, here are our rules. I think more states should follow suit.
Sandy Rios: You know that makes me think of Louisiana. I have a really good friend who you might know. I'll just leave her anonymous. But she ah has a very important position in Louisiana. She's got her finger to the pulse of what's happening there all the time. Plus she's a player there and she's also a hard grader like I am. I trust her judgment. And she raves about the AI facility and what it's done for Louisiana and about the jobs it's created. How they have put money in colleges to train young men and women to do jobs that are needed and all. And I think actually in that clip I think we heard about Louisiana and how things have really helped. And that's not just pr. If my friend says it's true. Trust me. She'd be the first one to be critical. So Louisiana has had great success and I think that's meta that they're working with.
Joel Metta: I think President Trump is right on data center issue
But, also, Joel, I just want to play a clip, because President Trump is the one really who has been making these deals, he loves to call it that, I'll call it that, deals with all of these companies and people to come into this country and build these big data centers to build up our AI. But he just, not long ago, I'm not sure the date, made this statement at a conference. And this is clip three.
Donald Trump: I introduced the ratepayer protection pledge. Under this groundbreaking plan, America's largest tech companies have formally committed to fund or build all energy infrastructure required to meet the demand they are placing on the grid. So they're going to be funding all of those electric needs and we're giving them the right to build their own power plants. Lee Zeldin is here. He's phenomenal.
Sandy Rios: All right, so, yeah, lead Zeldin is phenomenal. I'm sure there's more to that sentence, but Lee, I guess, is the one overseeing the Energy Secretary. Does great work. I think President Trump is right. So President, President Trump is very aware of this and has made this pledge, rate payer protection pledge. But, as I understood it when I heard you speak last week, did you not say that states and local governments are the ones, it's on them to make sure this happens in the agreement, Is that right?
Joel Thayer: Yeah, I think that's, that's mostly correct. But look, it also is enforced by that agreement on the federal level as well. Like if they don't follow through with the President's ratepayer, protection pledge, they can, you know, face the ire of, you know, President Donald Trump, who we know is not a shrinking, violent when it comes to enforcing his deals. But I, think this really has to come down to individual, states adopting this and maybe even codifying it in the statute. So that way there isn't. This isn't a voluntary mandate. This is something that is required of them. It's just table stakes when it comes to the negotiation. And so I think that, that, I think that is why I really do appreciate where the President is coming on. This is so much better than the alternative, which is just a straight moratorium, which you're seeing in more liberal states and in some Republican states as well. I just think that that's a complete overcorrection to some of the issues that we're seeing. And I Think what the President is doing is he is threading the needle between the acknowledgment on the one end that these data centers do cause problems and it is real. No one is gaslighting anybody when saying that. The data center question has a lot of thorny issues involved with it. But this, the pledge that he proposed I think is one of the the strongest ways of achieving two goals. One is to make sure that the local population gets, gets an influx of jobs immediately from these data centers and to nobody actually gets impacted by this, at least from a financial standpoint where it is not on. The burden is shifts from the tech companies and the utilities passing this on to the consumers to the government basically pushing it on the tech companies themselves, which is a fair deal. That should as your, as your clip alluded to, companies like Metta are more than willing to open their wallets and they're willing to do whatever, whatever it takes to get this data center built in. And they're willing to do lots of job growth programs. They're willing to do train of local population. This is, these are good things. These are things that traditionally we've always wanted from the private sector. But again this has to come from the pressure that you're seeing from the President and on down to the states on these tech companies. These tech companies will not do it on their own. And this is why you have like this big stick type of this big sick and carry incentive structure that the rate protection plan actually invokes. And this is why I'm a huge supporter of it. I would really hope instead of immediately going to the moratorium. Look, I understand the instinct. I totally get it. No one wants big ugly edifices. Understood? I don't either. I'd rather look at a beautiful creek or a mountain than a basically faceless building. but I think at the same time we have to acknowledge that not all land is equal and not all land is equally useful for those types of exchanges. I think that the thing that we have to do is do something similar to what we did in 5G which was we allow the states a lot of authority to determine time, space, manner, let the states decide where the best place to put these centers are. Much like how we don't have giant 80, 90 foot towers in the middle of Main Street. We let them, we let all the all the local populations decide where, where these things ought to go on the front end. And we also made sure that no one in that local population pays for this, this is just common sense stuff. And I think that does one of two things. it definitely does one thing and I think it also does another. The first thing it does is that it makes, it puts the legislator and the local population in control and it allows for the first time ever, the people that dictate the terms of the tech companies, as opposed to the reverse. We decide how these, how these things are going to get built, how you're going to build them, where you're going to build them and how they're going to be used so that way you don't impact the population. That to me that is just American empowerment. And I think that this ratepayer protection plan does that at least gets us to the point where we have a federal backing, our backstop or the states do that. Look, if you don't do it here we got we had a pretty angry guy sitting in the Oval Office that's more than willing to drop a hammer if you decide to back out of the pledge you just made to him. And on the other end, I think what's really great too is that there's going to be land that isn't always used, that isn't used to the to its fullest and frankly cannot be used for any of the things that you know, barren land, ah, is used for, such as farming. Some, some areas you are just cannot, you cannot cultivate a crop. Well, okay, I think the people who would know best where those lands are are of course the local, the local governments and the local, and the local population and they can vote and figure out exactly where this particular thing goes and where that land is. And then guess what? That land now is being used for something meaningful and purposeful. And what's more, you'll have jobs going and spreading out the population so that there aren't these condensed city living types of exchanges. And you see that all, you see that you see that phenomenon happen in every place where they're built. I mean, I, so my colleague and I at AFPI wrote a piece about, you know, the general thrust of the piece to talk about how moratoriums are an overcorrection. But in all actuality what we're making the case is, the actual case we're making is that look, there's a benefit here that you just don't want to miss out on. And here's a thoughtful, smart way of doing it and here are some stats that will help you understand,
Joel Thayer: how much this can benefit your local population and we point to not just whatever the corporate talking point is, what we're actually doing is, we're pointing out that individual, who, individual plumbers and electricians are saying this. These aren't paid politicians saying that this is going to be helpful. These are everyday working class Americans, blue collar Americans, the lifeblood of this country, saying we want these jobs because we were out of work until this, until this thing popped up. Now, ah, I think that is a positive thing. But again, we have to walk and chew gum as we always have done with technology, when it came to 5G, we recognize the infrastructure is absolutely necessary, but we also recognize that it's ugly. It's not something that we want, everywhere. And so we came to a compromise that was both, that was with a federal action plan, while at the same time acknowledging states had a role. This air should be no different. And I don't think it is. And I think the President is saying we don't want that. We don't want that for our population either. Yeah, we want data centers, but we want this done in a thoughtful way. I mean, this is a very pragmatic, systematic, practical administration when it comes to this issue. And so I just don't see us diverting, that track. I think if more states did that, this conversation as to whether or not data centers are good, bad, ugly, kind of go away and we start, actually asking ourselves, what do we want from these tech companies and what do we want from these services and also what do we want from this data center in particular and how can we leverage that to advance true human flourishing and true energy abundance, or just abundance in general?
Sandy Rios: Yeah. You know, I was just thinking, I'm guessing that a lot of this opposition, I'm guessing they're probably in blue states, his opposition to President Trump. But I'm thinking these are the people that love these big windmills. They don't mind that they're everywhere. infant in the ocean everywhere you swim and they're worthless. and they don't mind those blights to the landscape. But this, they would resist.
Joel Steinberg: I think we need a federal privacy law
But I do want to ask you some harder questions, Joel, because, Because these are things I'm concerned about too. I think. Oh, we all hate, we hate losing all of our privacy. I really think that the horses out of the barn, I don't, you know, I've just sort of given up because they know everything about you. And so that kind of, negates my question. But these are things that people are concerned about. And then the Other thing is, this is a real big concern because I'm sure that, you know, because we all do that these AI systems are programmed by people. Maybe pro, I mean if I'm using the wrong terms, I'm sorry, but the input is being given by people and the people that are giving input in most of this are using left of center or left like NewSong York Times and Washington Post. Those, those are preferred and those are just news outlets. There's other information outlets but there, it's not balanced. So most of the information you get, unless you ask follow up, a lot of follow up questions will be left leaning answers or sometimes just wrong answers. I notice that with GROK all the time. So I don't know how we counter that because that's all some people know. They go to GROK right now and think it's the Bible, you know, but it's not the Bible and it makes mistakes. So how do we, how do we counter that?
Joel Thayer: So I'm going to actually lean on a Democrat who said something very interesting and I agree with wholeheartedly. And he said this at the at the apex of a very heated hearing in the Senate where it's Senator Whitehouse and he said Lee looked right at Mark Zuckerberg and the owners of Snap and I think some representative from Eck and just looked at them and said you guys really suck at regulating yourselves. And I agree with them. I think that that is this idea. The good news about AI versus the social media age is that the AI companies are in a whole different landscape in terms of legal and regulatory responsibility. On one end they have absolutely no regulatory responsibility. And that's where I think the the work has to be done. So you mentioned a few really important issues. I testified in Congress at the Senate Judiciary hearing that we need a federal privacy law just as a tabletop. But I don't think that gets far enough or goes far enough because we don't want to do is recreate the same things that we saw in the social media age where you have like this very big investigation where you find out that, you find out that these tech companies are doing all these creative horribles of your data and they get slapped with a 1 point or $400 billion or $40 billion fee or, or imposition. And you really do the math that. And $40 billion, you and I are like that's a lot of money. But for them it's like, well how much does that actually amount to, right? Or some of the 40 billion that's like, that would be amazing if we actually got that high. Usually we're getting to like the 1 billion to about maybe 3 billion or maybe a few hundred million. That's a drop in the bucket that turns into a speeding ticket. And in some ways the tech companies have even looked at violating your privacy as a cost of doing business. So we have to get serious about actually creating a law with real teeth and not like the European GDPR style. We have to actually really encourage our legislators to say that our data, our data is ours, it's our property, it's our rights. And if folks want to use it in a certain way, especially tech companies, you either have to compensate us for that or you have to or if we have the right to take our data wherever we want to and we have the right to dictate the terms, if we don't agree to that, we are going to have a very hard time pushing back on the surveillance state. And the other thing that we really, I think we really need to do is that the fact that the fact is that the market is hyper concentrated, is highly vertically integrated, meaning that one company actually owns several different companies that all do basically the same thing. They're just rebranded or whitelisted as doing something else. A good example is that you have Facebook that has WhatsApp you as Instagram and it has a whole host, it has even its AI that that's getting kicked in or it's on chat bot that's getting kicked in. And you're seeing that with Microsoft and other and other companies. So one thing that I think would be very helpful in breaking all that up and disincentivizing this mass concentration because ultimately that's what they want. They want to be a centrifuge for all the data. The way we push back against that is one for one we talked about, which is a data privacy law that actually has true teeth. And it doesn't just treat your, it treats you your data with dignity and it should be imbued with the ability for you to pull your data back whenever you want to. The other thing we need to do is make sure that we are staying, we're keeping our finger on the pulse on antitrust enforcement. We have to make sure that these companies are not further incentivized to fully integrating their systems, which only means one thing. They want to increase the amount of data sets that have total control of your data sets and so forth. For me it's a twofold issue on the surveillance question. There is a data, we should do a data security law full stop and it should require something similar to what Texas has done and I think Louisiana as well, where you're imbued with data, with with data subject rights, which is similar to what the GDPR does, but it's at least, it's tailored to traditional American versions of data privacy rights or data property rights. On the other end we have to make sure that we are keeping the, the age old market regulator that we've had since the dawn of like the 20th century and that is antitrust. We should be, we should be hyper skeptical, skeptical of a lot of these major data mergers that are, that are occurring. That should be, that should be table stage. The other things that we can do with respect to bias. I have been a huge advocate for applying what's called common carriage regulations on a lot of these different systems which basically just means that you are treating every data, data the same. You are not, you are not permitted to discriminate on the basis of a political ideology or race or gender or whatever as a company. If you do, we can see you to high heaven. So that to me is, I love that.
Sandy Rios: That would be great.
Joel Thayer: Yeah. So that to me is a bit is just some of the things that we can do. But again these are problems that we can solve as like I'm a big fan of walking and chewing gum. I think these problems are also, it can be incrementally implemented as well. It doesn't need to be a mass omnibus. We can address each individual question with respect to bias, surveillance, child safety. We should be doing all, we should be having all of those conversations and at the same time acknowledge that there are positive aspects of AI that we do like and we do need. And I think that in order, if we, if we have, if we adopt that view we'll have the same success as we had in the age of 5G where look, we recognize that there was aspects of the 5G that we did want. I mean if frequencies were too high, nobody wanted to have, you know, nobody wanted to have that infiltrating their bodies or their house. However we, we recognize that mobile was everywhere. Everyone was, everyone needed to get connected in some way and people were demanding mobile technology. So we had to make sure that we were also building the infrastructure to account for that, for those payloads that were going to go all over the network. I think we have to do the same thing with, with AG. Sorry, with AI, I'm missing my five GS and maybe I'm making a new thing called AG. but, I think in the, in the age of AI, we have to acknowledge that, look, the infrastructure is not the issue here. If you have real issues with the services, there are ways we can regulate that on the back end, and we can find acute harms that we feel are important to preserve. And in my mind, it's child safety, it's protecting against biased systems, and it's also making sure that we create. That we have our own digital sovereignty away from these, these tech companies. And at the same time, we can acknowledge. Look, but there are other things that this, These systems require a lot of compute, which is basically. You brought up Paris before. COMPUTE is the fuel for AI. So we have to make sure that they're at least fueled up to do the things that we wanted to do. And we don't feed or lose the race, to China in the long run. Because I also don't want to live in a regime where bias is being determined by President Xi over in Beijing.
Sandy Rios: Yeah, and so, and so we have to talk about.
Why are we so concerned about beating China in AI? Explain, please
Yeah, so let's address that because, because some people are actually skeptical that this is such a big issue that we need to, be the leaders in AI. Some people are saying, what's. What's the big deal about that? Why. Why are we so concerned about beating China in AI? Explain, please.
Joel Thayer: Sure. It comes down to one word. Accountability. Who is the one that's the most accountable to US Citizens? Is it going to be tech companies that have to abide by our laws, or is it the. Is it the Chinese government? And I think the answer should be pretty obvious that if we have strong laws on the books that prevent these companies from doing all the creative horrible that we just discussed, and they have a financial incentive to be here, which they do. The US Is a, major market for any tech company. If you're not in the US you're not going to survive only in China alone. So you're going to have to deal with us, which means we have. The US has serious leverage here. But if we decide that, look, we're just going to. We're going to bow out of this race. We're going to bow to this technological arms race. Well, you're making a incredibly dangerous gambit in that you are now saying that there's only one person that can. There's only one sovereign that can actually provide the same type of services we can provide, and that is Our number one foreign adversary. So you're going to have to make the choice whether we address the issues that we want with AI and make sure that our laws are strong enough to prevent the parade of horribles, while at the same time recognize that we have to win this race. Because if we don't, if we don't dictate the terms, China will. And if you think that the Chinese government cares at all about whether or not your child is getting addicted to your service, I point you to one data point that I think should resonate with virtually everyone. When TikTok was solely owned by ByteDance, that the company that was attuned to the Chinese government and had a lot of connections to the Chinese government, they did not care that kids were eating ipods as a challenge. They did nothing to stop it. TikTok was, was not there to be a market differentiator. It was there as a surveillance and espionage tool and also in my, from my perspective, a complete Chinese psyop. And that really did impact not just, not just young adults, but teens and kids. Kids were dying on this platform. And if you want to see what they, what the the type of Tick Tock that you got in Beijing, they were that tick that. I forgot what the actual name of the company was. But the same company that was basically a rebranded Tick Tock was showing their kids science videos and showing them how to do certain projects and how to engaging with parents. And they had time limits on it. Like the Chinese government basically gave their the best version of their services to their population and gave us trash because that was beneficial to them. This is not an organization that you want to take lightly. And this is not a time to take our foot off the gas. We need to be able to one charge ahead and make sure that we are preserving the things that make us American, preserve the things that make us that happy and healthy and at the same time rid of, rid ourselves of all the parts of the technology that we don't like. But that is up to us, that it should not be up to a foreign adversary. And I'm afraid if we go down this route of just saying the infrastructure is inherently bad or AI is inherently bad, we are going to cede the race to an entire organization of people who do not care about our own form of flourishing. And that to me is a very scary prospect.
Sandy Rios: And let me just ask you a basic question, Joel, and this will show my non technical side. all right. Is it not possible? I'll answer my own Question. No, it's not. But the question can. Is there a way for Americans not to be overtaken by Chinese AI? I mean, how. I guess it's all in the air and all in the wires and through. I guess it's not possible. I mean, because, you could think there'd be. There could be a division like, this is American AI, this is a Chinese. And. And you choose what you want. But I guess they tell me how that works and why we can't do something like that.
Joel Thayer: So I think it depends on what you mean by works, right? So, like, if. If. For me, the question is always, where is the incentive structure for these companies? Even like a Chinese company? Like, if you want to. If you have very stringent laws that say, you know, you cannot surveil or you cannot engage in this type of bias or, for instance, we actually did do that, in a certain respect where we started to say, look, if you have a company that has a lot of background deals or potentially even direct, connection to the Chinese government, you are banned from this country and you cannot operate here, nor can any other company work with you, called the TikTok divestment law. But that can also be applied to a lot of these different apps, and that regime can be applied to these types of systems as well. And I also think that the president right now is weighing that option. I don't know if you've, been following, but there's a very hard conversation that, this president is having with these companies about the use of using open weighted models from, from Chinese companies. And there's a consideration that he should ban it. Now, that might be. That might be an option. I don't know. I. The devil's in the details and all that stuff, so I'll reserve my opinions on it. But my. The instinct, I think, is right where you are acknowledging that these companies are. These are. Sorry, this. The Chinese enter, Chinese governmental enterprise is certainly trying to steal the technology from here and repurpose it and repackage it and send it back to us to do all sorts of nefarious stuff. And I think the president is taking proactive steps to thwart that threat while at the same time allowing our companies to force. So part of it is just figuring out what the guardrails are and where the threats. Where the threats seem to be. And it seems like this president is very, is very concerned and considering all of those options. So for me, part of it, you know, there's a know your customer type, regime that you can, you can engage in where like if you're anthropic or open AI and one of your customers, they deal with a lot of enterprises and one of your enterprises as weird connections to the Chinese government, maybe you shouldn't be selling to them if you want to do business here. Like that should be something that we should all agree to. At a very basic level. I'm also very concerned about the idea that using Chinese using Chinese models is the or allowing, allowing Chinese models to train on our models, also known as distillation is a good thing too. That should not be a practice that we have in the US we should also limit the amount of interactions these these developers have with those types of companies and those types of development because frankly, although I'm all for the idea of free and fair trading, China doesn't play fair. They integrate to our systems, they steal our technology and then they repackage it to us. So that is not a fair trade. Until they to play ball with us on a, on a real fundamental level. They shouldn't be part of this part of the, our development. We should be making this homegrown. So there is, there are options that we can employ. I think the government, I think the President is reviewing several of those options. But again this is going to be a very hard fought conversation. And so I am not of the, I'm not of that that think that we have, that China has already kind of won.
I really love the solutions you suggested Joel. They make a lot of sense to me
We're going to use them out infinitum and I don't think we're there yet. I think that we are very much in the lead in this, in this conversation and we have the ability to keep us in that leadership position. We did it in 5G. We can certainly do.
Sandy Rios: I really love the solutions you suggested Joel. They make a lot of sense to me. bias, treating all media the same, child safety. And what was the other, digital sovereignty.
Joel Thayer: I can't remember digital sovereignty. So you should, you should own your data, not the company.
Sandy Rios: Yeah, yeah. So if we can set that up, I think people will be much more at peace.
Sandy: I think AI can be used as a sense of augmentedness
One thing that just a practical thing that helps me to understand why there are good things about AI and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that AI is the reason DOGE was able to go through all of the agencies or departments of the United States government and make all of these assessments about who wasn't working, who was working, who was wasting money, who wasn't wasting Money. Isn't that. Wasn't it AI that they employed to do that?
Joel Thayer: Yeah, in part. I mean, so, again, it was an augmented intelligence. So the, The AI basically just flagged things for a real person to review. And I think that's how AI should operate in those contexts, because those are real human decisions. Regardless of how you feel about, an individual government bureaucrat, they're a person, they have a job, and AI can get it wrong. That's why you need humans as a backstop to make sure that we're making the right choices. And I think that. And so a large part of it was that, Doge was first letting the AI just based off certain parameters, figure out exactly where the waste was and how the waste was being used and who really wasn't showing up to work based on.
Sandy Rios: Right, that's right.
Joel Thayer: Yeah. And so if it created a report so a human can review that and go, wait a minute, what is going on here? Like, why are we paying you 80,000, $90,000 a year and you're not even coming to work? You're not even coming. You haven't been to the building in three years. So what is going on here? You need to either come back, or we need to figure out what you actually do here. And so I think AI can be used as a sense of augmentedness, capabilities, as opposed to a complete replacement. And that's why I thought what Doge did on the front end was actually a very smart thing to do. You allow the technology to basically find the issues that you've deemed as fraud and wasteful, and then you have humans making the actual conscious decision as to whether or not the AI was right or wrong. That, I think, is. That is one great example of how you can apply AI and not completely remove the human element out of this. Because no one wants a robot deciding whether or not you're productive or not. You want. You want an actual human reviewing what the robot has done and either agree or disagree with its conclusion. To me, that is the. That is the counterbalance. And as a strict constitution, I'm a big fan of separating of powers. I do. And I, as a strict conservative, I do not like concentrated authority. I certainly don't like concentrated authority when it's a machine over a human. The backstop should always be human first. We should have human first policy. And I think that the example you alluded to, I think, is the right answer, which is, look, you use AI as a tool to do a certain thing, but it's ultimately the humans that decide the fate of a particular instance because we are the ones accountable to each other. We're, we're Americans, we're a community, and we have to stand up for each other. We don't need to offset that to a robot.
Sandy Rios: Joel, I think you just answered my last question because I was going to ask you, in, a perfect world, what would a good AI look like? And I think you just answered that. So listen, thank you so much for making this much clearer to us. I want to add one little data point that I learned as I was reading. One of these companies building these data centers has done some research to discover a, way of cutting down the usage of water, by 90%. Don't ask me where or who. I can't remember. I just read that. So there are people that are really working to make this thing, these data centers, better for communities. And I, I just thought that's a, I wanted to mention that.
Joel Thayer: So, Joe, I couldn't agree with you more like that that is how we ought to be using technology. It should be used to promote humanity. And I think that's one example that you pointed to that where. That's a great data point.
Sandy Rios: Yeah. All right, good. Ah, Joel Thayer, senior fellow for AI and Emerging technology for the, America First Policy Institute and also the president of the Digital Progress Institute. And Joel, thank you so much. thank you. And, this is Sandy rios on Sandy Rios 24. 7.
Abortions performed by Planned Parenthood accounted for the top four leading causes
Joel Thayer: This is Sandy Rios 247 on American Family Radio.
Sandy Rios: Abortions performed by Planned Parenthood were among the top leading causes of death in America, revealing the terrifying truth of the left's anti life agenda. According to Planned Parenthood's 202223 annual report, Abortions performed by the organization accounted for the top four leading causes of death. Think about that. Paid for by our tax dollars. And honestly, this freight train is going down the track so fast and so powerfully. It's really hard. It's going to be hard for us to stop this. And I think one of the best ways, I've said before, I'll say again, is preborn. PreBorn, who was not part of the government, not part of the public debate or campaigns, but an organization that's simply providing ultrasounds for moms who are pregnant and doubting whether they should carry the baby to allow them to see their baby through ultrasound. It's an amazing process and it actually works. When, the moms see their babies, I think it doubles the chance that they will not take the life of their baby. You know, you can't beat those odds. If you'd like to help, $28 pays for one ultrasound. Just one. And you can send however much you can afford. Go to preborn.com sandy that's preborn.com sandy the Sandy Rios 24. 7 podcast are available at afr.net back to Sandy Rios 24. 7 on American Family Radio.
Tech companies are increasingly using data centers to train and operate artificial intelligence systems
What is a data center? A data center houses rows of computers and equipment for storing, processing and transmitting data. They typically have few windows and extra security, including cameras and sometimes biometric screening. The computers need a lot of electricity to operate and to keep the equipment from overheating. That also requires more electricity and huge amounts of water for elaborate air conditioning. The International Energy Agency says one large data center uses the same amount of electricity as it takes to power 400,000 electric cars. Tech companies are increasingly using their data centers to train and operate artificial intelligence systems. Training an AI model to learn from huge amounts of data requires additional computing power. Conventional data center services run on processors known as CPUs. AI relies on graphics processing units, or GPUs. The IEA estimates that asking OpenAI's ChatGPT to compose an answer requires nearly 10 times as much electricity as a traditional Google search. Amazon, Microsoft and Google have all announced plans to tap into nuclear energy to help power their users, US Data centers. They've also helped finance new wind and solar farms and, other alternative energy sources. In the near term, however, most data centers are still heavily reliant on the surrounding electricity grid, which is largely powered by burning fossil fuels, the primary cause of global warming. This is making it harder for some countries and tech companies to keep their promises to address climate change.
Sandy Rios: Well, that's an AP report. So forget about the global warming thing because, you know, I don't, I don't adhere certainly to their philosophy on that. But on the AI centers, I thought they did a really good job of explaining, what they do, what they look like and the requirements that they have. So, and after that long discussion that we've had with Joel, I think hopefully you'll have a good idea. In Louisiana, they put this data center in, an area that was not developed and would not develop into anything productive because of the land. I can't explain it further than that. And my friend who is there in the middle of all of this tells me that this area is just suddenly thriving. People are getting jobs, there are restaurants being built, and it was just a rural, area where there was not, not a good economy. So that's what's happening in Louisiana. And the idea is, I guess as these centers are being built in remote areas in other places in the country, the same thing will happen to those local areas. But it does need. The local authorities must be very, very shrewd about the agreements they make with these companies because the companies, you know, they're smart and they've been around the block a bit and it's kind of new to some of the smaller, smaller communities, which I'm from a smaller community, so. So it's. All these details are new to me too. So. And with the, the stopgap measures that Joel presented, I thought it was. I was very impressed with that, to create an AI that is, has no bias, that treats all data the same. I love that. And also child safety, for heaven. I sake. I think of Chat GPT and all the horrors we've heard about how it's befriended kids and talked them into suicide. Have you heard that? And that has. That's just. That's vulgar and foul and has to stop. So I'm assuming he means things like that. And then of course, Digital. Digital solve sovereignty over our own information, that these companies don't own our information. So if we can, and you know, Joel's in a position that he could actually make those. He could make those things happen. It has to be passed, I suppose, by Congress, but he would know how to write the legislation, how to push it, how to present it. And so I, I feel better with, A.I. if those things take place. But I just wanted you to have a better understanding because again, this is a big deal for some of the midterms. And I think it's important that we all understand not only for the sake of voting, but also just understanding for our own sake. Because if it comes to our communities, we need to know, we need to be informed. And so hopefully now you are. I want to remind you that PreBorn is our sponsor. And they make it possible for me to bring this information to you. Besides that, they're in the business of saving the lives of babies. And they do that by showing the moms who are hesitant or confused, ultrasound pictures, photos, videos of their baby in utero. And it just works beautifully. And guess why? Because I think it's God's way. It's just truth that you can't deny. And so PreBorn does that. It's $28 for every ultrasound. If you'd like to help, go to preborn.com sandy that's preborn.com sandy. Well, thank you so much for listening to today's edition of Sandy Rios. 24 7.
An AI data center in Michigan could affect the midterm elections
What if I told you this random construction site could actually sway the midterm elections? It's going to be an AI data center, one of many powering the AI boom across the country. In Michigan alone, there are more than a dozen of them currently planned. These are multi billion dollar projects coming to rural towns across the state. But just one of them has started construction. We're going to go to Saline Township, which is a tiny little community in southeast Michigan. With this data center coming in, it's really hard to understand the scale of these data centers until you have to drive past it. I mean, it's many, many, many football fields. This thing is going to totally change the character of the landscape of the township. In terms of size, it's 250 acres and it's being built for tech giant Oracle. In terms of how much power it needs, it's enough to power a million homes. And people here are really upset. The company's developer says that this is going to be good for the town. It's going to be environmentally friendly, bring jobs, it's going to bring money into the school system. But a lot of the residents don't believe that. The residents feel like they' bulldozed and overrun. I see both sides just not listening to the little people. It just feels like there's really nobody rooting for us. I'm confused. For this next election cycle, I really don't know where I will put my alliances. This is a new force in our political landscape, and it's just this live wire that we don't quite know what effect it's going to have. This is something that's happening all over the country. But in Michigan, it's particularly important because in these midterm elections in November, Michigan is a critical battleground state. But the Democratic and Republican parties haven't really caught on yet. Sort of like the political equivalent of the proverbial $100 bill lying on a sidewalk. And we don't know which party's going to pick it up.
Sandy Rios: Well, certainly we're in the situation we've never been in before, and there are lots of primaries going, going on right now in a lot of states. The issue of AI and these data centers which will power this huge growth of AI, which President Trump has supported, and he's brought businesses in to spend millions and billions of dollars in our, in our, in our country. So, but people are confused. Like there's really bad reports of, of the data centers taking so much electricity and water that it's, it's, a burden on the communities. And so. And yet we know that AI, certainly artificial intelligence had a huge part to do with things like doge, where they went through the entire United States government, all the agencies, and found spending problems and were able to eliminate, programs and even agencies and certainly a lot of employees. so we know that AI is capable of doing many good things like research, scientific research and medical developments. but what about our privacy? And what about what these AI companies do, like a chat GPT and all of that? What about the harms to our children and our privacy? Well, we're going to discuss all of that, with an expert today, and the hard questions, the good things and the bad. And I think it will be very beneficial. It certainly was beneficial to me to talk to Joel Thayer, because he's an expert from A to Z. I'll introduce him more thoroughly when, when he, when he joins me in a few minutes. But Joel is an expert. I heard him, ah, brief a group just last week. And I was so impressed because a lot of times, for me anyway, when I've heard AI experts speak, I, I always feel there's a smugness like, like a disregard for genuine concerns of people like you and me. But, Joel is not like that. He's not a wonk, although he is. He's brilliant. You'll. You'll hear his bio, and he's been very deeply involved in all of this. But I sensed in him a heart for the concerns and a heart to make things right. So I think this is going to be a really good, balanced discussion of the future of AI and all these data centers. And maybe it will help some of you, to understand more thoroughly. It certainly has helped me. And so we'll do that.
Most women are ordering abortion pills, and it is two pills
But first, for whatever reason, the abortion pill is still legal. I know that Health and Human Services is doing testing and they're trying to bring, some research to prove to the skeptics how dangerous it is to women. I think they're going to find a lot of proof if we don't have obstruction, which is always danger. But meanwhile, back at the ranch, most women are ordering these abortion pills, and it is two pills through the mail to first kill, then expel their babies. And this can happen at any stage of pregnancy. It's so grotesque, it's really hard to believe. And many states, this is fine, man. You can do whatever you want. and PreBorn, you might have heard the last time. Dan Steiner, who's the, CEO of PreBorn, told us on this show. That they have women coming into the clinics. This happens frequently, holding their dead bodies of their baby, you know, begging for help. it's just, these are the things that are not being reported, you know, the newspaper. You can't trust them. I'm sure we've told you that before. You can't trust them. You've got to find a voice that you can trust. I hope I'm that for you. But the abortion pills are still available, and this is still happening. And so preborn really is the redeeming alternative for women who are considering abortion, because they get an ultrasound. And when young moms or older moms, see their babies in the womb, they usually just say, oh, I can't do that. I can't terminate their life. And so it's just. I always think it's just God's way. It's a beautiful way of stopping abortion. It's $28 for one ultrasound. It's $28. And all you have to do is go to preborn.com sandy. That's preborn.com sandy. And make your most generous donation. All right, well, on today's edition of Sandy Rios, 24 7, Joel Thayer, who is a senior fellow for AI and emerging technology, at America First Policy Institute and is also the president of the Digital Process Institute. He's a tech and telecom attorney. He's got such. And he used to work for the FTC under Chairman Ajit Pai. his, bio was really long and impressive, and he knows what he's talking about. So we are very, very lucky to have him.
Facebook is building a massive data center in Louisiana; some consumer advocates not satisfied
Today on this edition of Sandy Rios, 24 7, from American Family Radio, Sandy Rios. We are not called to be nice. We are often called to be confrontational. And here with me in D.C. is Fox News contributor Sandy Rios.
Sandy Rios: I think the most important thing we need to demonstrate to our children is genuineness, that we actually believe what we say we believe. Longtime Fox News contributor Sandy Rios. Thanks very much for being with us.
Sandy Rios: Seek justice. Not social justice, but God's justice. What's right and what's wrong. Cindy Rios is with the American Family Association, a pro life radio talk show host.
Sandy Rios: We've got to say this is the line. Life is sacred. Director of Governmental affairs for the American Family Association.
Sandy Rios: Step up, speak up. Say something, do something. It's being called one of the largest investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure in the world, and it's being built in one of the poorest areas of Louisiana. Louisiana. That is opportunity. That is how you live people out of poverty. That's how, that's how you fix a broken state. Facebook parent company Meta is more than doubling the size of its data center in Richland Parish, a $50 billion project. So Big Ten power plants need to be built to supply it with electricity. The governor praising the economic impact it's going to create. 7,500 construction jobs, more than a thousand permanent high paying jobs, nearly 1900 additional indirect jobs. The data center could eventually use six times more power per day than the entire city of NewSong Orleans on the hottest day of summer. Meta says it will pay for the new power plants and for upgrades to roads and water systems. We want to be the very best partners that this state could possibly have. The company says it struck a deal that will bring down local homeowners electric bills. But some consumer advocates not satisfied. It's not just residents in Richland Parish. It's all entergy Louisiana customers that bear the risk of this project. Critics also pointing to the lucrative state tax breaks given to Meta. But supporters say tax revenue from the project is already changing lives, helping to fund bonuses of up to $50,000 for local teachers. My retirement because of the bonus has just doubled. My daughter's not going to have to worry. Hannah Bata, ABC News, NewSong York.
Sandy Rios speaks with Joel Thayer about artificial intelligence
Sandy Rios: All right, Sandy Rios with you. And I think, this is such a confusing issue. In some states it seems to be working, and in other states there seem to be problems, concerns about water and electricity and the costs. And of course the overall concern about AI, is just, what, what do we need this for? What is it going to accomplish? Are they going to invade our privacy more? Will people lose jobs? All of that are questions that we ask. And, and so, I've asked Joel Thayer, who is the senior fellow for AI and Emerging Technology Policy Policy at the America First Policy Institute. He's also the president of the Digital Progress Institute and is a tech and telecom attorney. And he comes to us from Washington. He also worked for Chairman Ajit Pai, who was the FCC chairman for a long time. He did some great things. And, Joel worked with him. And Joel, before we get into AI, didn't you kind of lead the charge against preventing Huawei, which was a Chinese entity, from, coming into this country?
Joel Thayer: I wouldn't say I love the charge that was the good chairman. but I certainly was very supportive of that. And of course am I. And a very proud card carrying, China hawk.
Sandy Rios: Well, join the club. I've actually been to China several times, Joel, and I love the Chinese people, but, we're in great danger in every area. you and I both know that. I've talked about it this mic, so we don't have to explain, but we do have to explain AI, because people don't really understand, I would say, even as an introduction, none, of us can get away from it now. You just can't. Your phones update and there you have it, and it takes over and it does things you don't want it to do. That's my experience. I guess it does some good things. But right now, I'm not crazy about it, Joel, but I feel like it's inevitable.
Why do we need massive AI centers to power all of this AI
So let's talk about this. I think the question would be just basic. Why do we need these massive AI centers to power all of this AI? Why do we need that? Why do Americans need that?
Joel Thayer: So there's the technical answer, which is that AI requires a lot of what's called compute. And so compute is just a fancy word that says we need a lot of data, we need to house that data, we need to be able to, use it in an efficient way. And so it's. That requires a lot of energy, requires a lot of special facilities. Now, what goes into that compute, I think really matters for the American consumer. And this goes back to something that we heard in the segment before, which is, you know, it's a bit of a mixed bag on the one end. It, you know, there are a lot of scientific advantages that we can take that, that it can lead the way on, especially when it comes to medical advancements, when it comes to, finding more energy efficiencies and creating abundance in that way. But of course, there are other applications that are very troubling. I mean, we're seeing, you know, how chatbots are intervening in the parent child dynamics. And so there's a. I think what's been happening here is that there's been this complete, and I think you're right, that there's this complete misunderstanding of, what I actually is how new it is. And frankly, a lot of these tech companies are just rebranding their obviously very candid, their crappy technology as like this new innovative thing. So. But that doesn't, that shouldn't take away from the underlying infrastructure that's required in order to do this. To be very clear, we talked, we talked a little bit about, you know, our China hawk bona fides. This is actually something that is incredibly important to consider as we start thinking about this infrastructure. Because every technology has a yin and a yang. There's A light and a dark to all of it. And the, the role of the government should be to really emphasize and promote the light side of A.I. and what it can do. And that is where these data centers can really make the difference outside of just the actual jobs that it can provide in the immediate future. There. This technology can actually serve humanity in the best way possible. But we have to orient it that way.
People really resisted cars, Joel says
Sandy Rios: Okay, well, let's. We're going to talk about that. I want us. This is how my mind thinks. I know I wasn't there, but I do love history. people really resisted cars. They were loud, annoying, they scared the horses. You know, people really did not like cars. And yet, of course, cars. Do I need to explain? Cars changed the lives of, people all over the globe. it opened up travel and commerce and good things for families, gave them freedom. And then phones. I think people were afraid of phones, too, and radios and receiving all those things. It was just very weird. And then I think even more recently, and not that I know a lot about this, Joel, because I'm not a technology person, I wouldn't even dare to pose as one, but I have to work with it. 3G and 4G was resisted, wasn't it?
Joel Thayer: Yes, that's absolutely right. And so there is always this awkward stage that, comes into play whenever a new technology is at the precipice. And we're at the point where there's mass adoption that's being foisted upon us. And let's be very clear, technology, much like modernity, only goes one direction. It only goes forward. And it's really hard to put the genie back in the bottle once it's out. And right now, AI is. It's basically out. we're incorporating it in almost every facet of our economy. And that's not just your phone. That also goes to water mains. We're talking about electric grids.
Every legislator should be very aware of how data centers impact the individual consumer
But with that, to me, I like that you use the issue of, Are you pointing to the use case of the car? I think that, even more, striking example is, going back to the trains and trains, actually.
Sandy Rios: That's right. That's right.
Joel Thayer: So. So, I mean, like, cars were just, you know, that was more of like the direct consumer, means it conveyed. But trains ultimately opened up the door. But look, it required a lot of stuff. It required rails. It required a lot of different conversations that had to happen. you know, railroads had to be negotiated by town to town, on where it was supposed to Go and how it was going to be used. You want to talk about a loud engine. I mean just anyone that's ever been next to a train station and I, you're probably hearing me lament this a bit because I live right next to one. It is a it is a massive nuisance. But at the same time it offers so many positive aspects to it that you, that I think the problem we have when it comes to having these conversations is, is frankly, where did the rails go in AI? And really that's what the data centers are. The data centers are the underlying infrastructure, much like the towers. The cell towers are the underlying infrastructure for 3G and 4G. They're not pretty to look at. They're not. I mean they're. I mean I think towers, don't really buzz the same way a data center buzz. But there are legitimate concerns here. Much like there are legitimate concerns if you live next to a railroad station or just a railroad in general really comes down to well, how do we make sure that we are one acknowledging that this, that AI is coming and it can do all these good things and look all the applications I think is a separate question. But if it requires this type of infrastructure, how do we be able, how are we able to place it in a place that doesn't actually impact the data, the everyday happenings of the local population? And I think that's where things get lost a bit in the conversation where there's all this conversations of how all this conversation surrounded on the negative aspect of data centers and what they do. And there is like this almost avoidant aspect of it where people just don't want to. People almost forget that, you know, states have a role here and states actually have more authority and also they have the ability to turn this infrastructure into a boon for the local economy without actually hurting their local population. And there are, there are just use case after use case of that being true. And so what I would strongly encourage is one, every legislator should be very hyper aware of how these data centers impact the individual consumer and at the same time figure out narrowly tailored ways of addressing those concerns that are serious concerns. If these data centers are raising the rates on a local population, that should not be on the consumer to pay that, that should be on directly on the tech companies. The tech companies should be the ones that they're using the power. It is just basic equity to have them pay for that. If they are raising the rates on water usage or limited amount of water usage, they should be Able to to compensate for all that usage and also supplement it where possible. The other thing that I think gets lost here is that states have now I mean look, I think you and I both know that our electric grid is not great. It's not even, it's not very good.
Sandy Rios: Very vulnerable. Very vulnerable. Yeah.
Joel Thayer: Yeah. Especially just old to the surges or just I mean we all experienced the heat recently. I mean that means a lot of air conditioners are getting turned on and there's a lot more infrastructure getting leveraged on these, on this archaic system. Well guess what if you have a data ah, center in there, there's a a lot of these data centers requirements agreements are also including an upgrade to the local grid which means that the individual state no longer has to be burdened with being the sole provider of you know, of that upgrade. Now they can actually leverage their, their bargaining position to say hey if you want to use this and you're going to put some pressure on this electric grid, you need to upgrade this stuff like this. That should not be on us. You're the one changing the dynamics here. you, you the tech companies. So this is a real opportunity for us not just to only on the one end, you know, get some real hardcore concrete jobs your segment and also alluded to the amount of jobs that will get created out of this. But we're also talking about an upgrade of all of our utilities and it'll be all paid for by the by the tech companies, not us. And you, you see that actually play out with with Texas. Texas recently just came out with a list of things that says hey this is if you want to build a data center, here are our rules. I think more states should follow suit.
Sandy Rios: You know that makes me think of Louisiana. I have a really good friend who you might know. I'll just leave her anonymous. But she ah has a very important position in Louisiana. She's got her finger to the pulse of what's happening there all the time. Plus she's a player there and she's also a hard grader like I am. I trust her judgment. And she raves about the AI facility and what it's done for Louisiana and about the jobs it's created. How they have put money in colleges to train young men and women to do jobs that are needed and all. And I think actually in that clip I think we heard about Louisiana and how things have really helped. And that's not just pr. If my friend says it's true. Trust me. She'd be the first one to be critical. So Louisiana has had great success and I think that's meta that they're working with.
Joel Metta: I think President Trump is right on data center issue
But, also, Joel, I just want to play a clip, because President Trump is the one really who has been making these deals, he loves to call it that, I'll call it that, deals with all of these companies and people to come into this country and build these big data centers to build up our AI. But he just, not long ago, I'm not sure the date, made this statement at a conference. And this is clip three.
Donald Trump: I introduced the ratepayer protection pledge. Under this groundbreaking plan, America's largest tech companies have formally committed to fund or build all energy infrastructure required to meet the demand they are placing on the grid. So they're going to be funding all of those electric needs and we're giving them the right to build their own power plants. Lee Zeldin is here. He's phenomenal.
Sandy Rios: All right, so, yeah, lead Zeldin is phenomenal. I'm sure there's more to that sentence, but Lee, I guess, is the one overseeing the Energy Secretary. Does great work. I think President Trump is right. So President, President Trump is very aware of this and has made this pledge, rate payer protection pledge. But, as I understood it when I heard you speak last week, did you not say that states and local governments are the ones, it's on them to make sure this happens in the agreement, Is that right?
Joel Thayer: Yeah, I think that's, that's mostly correct. But look, it also is enforced by that agreement on the federal level as well. Like if they don't follow through with the President's ratepayer, protection pledge, they can, you know, face the ire of, you know, President Donald Trump, who we know is not a shrinking, violent when it comes to enforcing his deals. But I, think this really has to come down to individual, states adopting this and maybe even codifying it in the statute. So that way there isn't. This isn't a voluntary mandate. This is something that is required of them. It's just table stakes when it comes to the negotiation. And so I think that, that, I think that is why I really do appreciate where the President is coming on. This is so much better than the alternative, which is just a straight moratorium, which you're seeing in more liberal states and in some Republican states as well. I just think that that's a complete overcorrection to some of the issues that we're seeing. And I Think what the President is doing is he is threading the needle between the acknowledgment on the one end that these data centers do cause problems and it is real. No one is gaslighting anybody when saying that. The data center question has a lot of thorny issues involved with it. But this, the pledge that he proposed I think is one of the the strongest ways of achieving two goals. One is to make sure that the local population gets, gets an influx of jobs immediately from these data centers and to nobody actually gets impacted by this, at least from a financial standpoint where it is not on. The burden is shifts from the tech companies and the utilities passing this on to the consumers to the government basically pushing it on the tech companies themselves, which is a fair deal. That should as your, as your clip alluded to, companies like Metta are more than willing to open their wallets and they're willing to do whatever, whatever it takes to get this data center built in. And they're willing to do lots of job growth programs. They're willing to do train of local population. This is, these are good things. These are things that traditionally we've always wanted from the private sector. But again this has to come from the pressure that you're seeing from the President and on down to the states on these tech companies. These tech companies will not do it on their own. And this is why you have like this big stick type of this big sick and carry incentive structure that the rate protection plan actually invokes. And this is why I'm a huge supporter of it. I would really hope instead of immediately going to the moratorium. Look, I understand the instinct. I totally get it. No one wants big ugly edifices. Understood? I don't either. I'd rather look at a beautiful creek or a mountain than a basically faceless building. but I think at the same time we have to acknowledge that not all land is equal and not all land is equally useful for those types of exchanges. I think that the thing that we have to do is do something similar to what we did in 5G which was we allow the states a lot of authority to determine time, space, manner, let the states decide where the best place to put these centers are. Much like how we don't have giant 80, 90 foot towers in the middle of Main Street. We let them, we let all the all the local populations decide where, where these things ought to go on the front end. And we also made sure that no one in that local population pays for this, this is just common sense stuff. And I think that does one of two things. it definitely does one thing and I think it also does another. The first thing it does is that it makes, it puts the legislator and the local population in control and it allows for the first time ever, the people that dictate the terms of the tech companies, as opposed to the reverse. We decide how these, how these things are going to get built, how you're going to build them, where you're going to build them and how they're going to be used so that way you don't impact the population. That to me that is just American empowerment. And I think that this ratepayer protection plan does that at least gets us to the point where we have a federal backing, our backstop or the states do that. Look, if you don't do it here we got we had a pretty angry guy sitting in the Oval Office that's more than willing to drop a hammer if you decide to back out of the pledge you just made to him. And on the other end, I think what's really great too is that there's going to be land that isn't always used, that isn't used to the to its fullest and frankly cannot be used for any of the things that you know, barren land, ah, is used for, such as farming. Some, some areas you are just cannot, you cannot cultivate a crop. Well, okay, I think the people who would know best where those lands are are of course the local, the local governments and the local, and the local population and they can vote and figure out exactly where this particular thing goes and where that land is. And then guess what? That land now is being used for something meaningful and purposeful. And what's more, you'll have jobs going and spreading out the population so that there aren't these condensed city living types of exchanges. And you see that all, you see that you see that phenomenon happen in every place where they're built. I mean, I, so my colleague and I at AFPI wrote a piece about, you know, the general thrust of the piece to talk about how moratoriums are an overcorrection. But in all actuality what we're making the case is, the actual case we're making is that look, there's a benefit here that you just don't want to miss out on. And here's a thoughtful, smart way of doing it and here are some stats that will help you understand,
Joel Thayer: how much this can benefit your local population and we point to not just whatever the corporate talking point is, what we're actually doing is, we're pointing out that individual, who, individual plumbers and electricians are saying this. These aren't paid politicians saying that this is going to be helpful. These are everyday working class Americans, blue collar Americans, the lifeblood of this country, saying we want these jobs because we were out of work until this, until this thing popped up. Now, ah, I think that is a positive thing. But again, we have to walk and chew gum as we always have done with technology, when it came to 5G, we recognize the infrastructure is absolutely necessary, but we also recognize that it's ugly. It's not something that we want, everywhere. And so we came to a compromise that was both, that was with a federal action plan, while at the same time acknowledging states had a role. This air should be no different. And I don't think it is. And I think the President is saying we don't want that. We don't want that for our population either. Yeah, we want data centers, but we want this done in a thoughtful way. I mean, this is a very pragmatic, systematic, practical administration when it comes to this issue. And so I just don't see us diverting, that track. I think if more states did that, this conversation as to whether or not data centers are good, bad, ugly, kind of go away and we start, actually asking ourselves, what do we want from these tech companies and what do we want from these services and also what do we want from this data center in particular and how can we leverage that to advance true human flourishing and true energy abundance, or just abundance in general?
Sandy Rios: Yeah. You know, I was just thinking, I'm guessing that a lot of this opposition, I'm guessing they're probably in blue states, his opposition to President Trump. But I'm thinking these are the people that love these big windmills. They don't mind that they're everywhere. infant in the ocean everywhere you swim and they're worthless. and they don't mind those blights to the landscape. But this, they would resist.
Joel Steinberg: I think we need a federal privacy law
But I do want to ask you some harder questions, Joel, because, Because these are things I'm concerned about too. I think. Oh, we all hate, we hate losing all of our privacy. I really think that the horses out of the barn, I don't, you know, I've just sort of given up because they know everything about you. And so that kind of, negates my question. But these are things that people are concerned about. And then the Other thing is, this is a real big concern because I'm sure that, you know, because we all do that these AI systems are programmed by people. Maybe pro, I mean if I'm using the wrong terms, I'm sorry, but the input is being given by people and the people that are giving input in most of this are using left of center or left like NewSong York Times and Washington Post. Those, those are preferred and those are just news outlets. There's other information outlets but there, it's not balanced. So most of the information you get, unless you ask follow up, a lot of follow up questions will be left leaning answers or sometimes just wrong answers. I notice that with GROK all the time. So I don't know how we counter that because that's all some people know. They go to GROK right now and think it's the Bible, you know, but it's not the Bible and it makes mistakes. So how do we, how do we counter that?
Joel Thayer: So I'm going to actually lean on a Democrat who said something very interesting and I agree with wholeheartedly. And he said this at the at the apex of a very heated hearing in the Senate where it's Senator Whitehouse and he said Lee looked right at Mark Zuckerberg and the owners of Snap and I think some representative from Eck and just looked at them and said you guys really suck at regulating yourselves. And I agree with them. I think that that is this idea. The good news about AI versus the social media age is that the AI companies are in a whole different landscape in terms of legal and regulatory responsibility. On one end they have absolutely no regulatory responsibility. And that's where I think the the work has to be done. So you mentioned a few really important issues. I testified in Congress at the Senate Judiciary hearing that we need a federal privacy law just as a tabletop. But I don't think that gets far enough or goes far enough because we don't want to do is recreate the same things that we saw in the social media age where you have like this very big investigation where you find out that, you find out that these tech companies are doing all these creative horribles of your data and they get slapped with a 1 point or $400 billion or $40 billion fee or, or imposition. And you really do the math that. And $40 billion, you and I are like that's a lot of money. But for them it's like, well how much does that actually amount to, right? Or some of the 40 billion that's like, that would be amazing if we actually got that high. Usually we're getting to like the 1 billion to about maybe 3 billion or maybe a few hundred million. That's a drop in the bucket that turns into a speeding ticket. And in some ways the tech companies have even looked at violating your privacy as a cost of doing business. So we have to get serious about actually creating a law with real teeth and not like the European GDPR style. We have to actually really encourage our legislators to say that our data, our data is ours, it's our property, it's our rights. And if folks want to use it in a certain way, especially tech companies, you either have to compensate us for that or you have to or if we have the right to take our data wherever we want to and we have the right to dictate the terms, if we don't agree to that, we are going to have a very hard time pushing back on the surveillance state. And the other thing that we really, I think we really need to do is that the fact that the fact is that the market is hyper concentrated, is highly vertically integrated, meaning that one company actually owns several different companies that all do basically the same thing. They're just rebranded or whitelisted as doing something else. A good example is that you have Facebook that has WhatsApp you as Instagram and it has a whole host, it has even its AI that that's getting kicked in or it's on chat bot that's getting kicked in. And you're seeing that with Microsoft and other and other companies. So one thing that I think would be very helpful in breaking all that up and disincentivizing this mass concentration because ultimately that's what they want. They want to be a centrifuge for all the data. The way we push back against that is one for one we talked about, which is a data privacy law that actually has true teeth. And it doesn't just treat your, it treats you your data with dignity and it should be imbued with the ability for you to pull your data back whenever you want to. The other thing we need to do is make sure that we are staying, we're keeping our finger on the pulse on antitrust enforcement. We have to make sure that these companies are not further incentivized to fully integrating their systems, which only means one thing. They want to increase the amount of data sets that have total control of your data sets and so forth. For me it's a twofold issue on the surveillance question. There is a data, we should do a data security law full stop and it should require something similar to what Texas has done and I think Louisiana as well, where you're imbued with data, with with data subject rights, which is similar to what the GDPR does, but it's at least, it's tailored to traditional American versions of data privacy rights or data property rights. On the other end we have to make sure that we are keeping the, the age old market regulator that we've had since the dawn of like the 20th century and that is antitrust. We should be, we should be hyper skeptical, skeptical of a lot of these major data mergers that are, that are occurring. That should be, that should be table stage. The other things that we can do with respect to bias. I have been a huge advocate for applying what's called common carriage regulations on a lot of these different systems which basically just means that you are treating every data, data the same. You are not, you are not permitted to discriminate on the basis of a political ideology or race or gender or whatever as a company. If you do, we can see you to high heaven. So that to me is, I love that.
Sandy Rios: That would be great.
Joel Thayer: Yeah. So that to me is a bit is just some of the things that we can do. But again these are problems that we can solve as like I'm a big fan of walking and chewing gum. I think these problems are also, it can be incrementally implemented as well. It doesn't need to be a mass omnibus. We can address each individual question with respect to bias, surveillance, child safety. We should be doing all, we should be having all of those conversations and at the same time acknowledge that there are positive aspects of AI that we do like and we do need. And I think that in order, if we, if we have, if we adopt that view we'll have the same success as we had in the age of 5G where look, we recognize that there was aspects of the 5G that we did want. I mean if frequencies were too high, nobody wanted to have, you know, nobody wanted to have that infiltrating their bodies or their house. However we, we recognize that mobile was everywhere. Everyone was, everyone needed to get connected in some way and people were demanding mobile technology. So we had to make sure that we were also building the infrastructure to account for that, for those payloads that were going to go all over the network. I think we have to do the same thing with, with AG. Sorry, with AI, I'm missing my five GS and maybe I'm making a new thing called AG. but, I think in the, in the age of AI, we have to acknowledge that, look, the infrastructure is not the issue here. If you have real issues with the services, there are ways we can regulate that on the back end, and we can find acute harms that we feel are important to preserve. And in my mind, it's child safety, it's protecting against biased systems, and it's also making sure that we create. That we have our own digital sovereignty away from these, these tech companies. And at the same time, we can acknowledge. Look, but there are other things that this, These systems require a lot of compute, which is basically. You brought up Paris before. COMPUTE is the fuel for AI. So we have to make sure that they're at least fueled up to do the things that we wanted to do. And we don't feed or lose the race, to China in the long run. Because I also don't want to live in a regime where bias is being determined by President Xi over in Beijing.
Sandy Rios: Yeah, and so, and so we have to talk about.
Why are we so concerned about beating China in AI? Explain, please
Yeah, so let's address that because, because some people are actually skeptical that this is such a big issue that we need to, be the leaders in AI. Some people are saying, what's. What's the big deal about that? Why. Why are we so concerned about beating China in AI? Explain, please.
Joel Thayer: Sure. It comes down to one word. Accountability. Who is the one that's the most accountable to US Citizens? Is it going to be tech companies that have to abide by our laws, or is it the. Is it the Chinese government? And I think the answer should be pretty obvious that if we have strong laws on the books that prevent these companies from doing all the creative horrible that we just discussed, and they have a financial incentive to be here, which they do. The US Is a, major market for any tech company. If you're not in the US you're not going to survive only in China alone. So you're going to have to deal with us, which means we have. The US has serious leverage here. But if we decide that, look, we're just going to. We're going to bow out of this race. We're going to bow to this technological arms race. Well, you're making a incredibly dangerous gambit in that you are now saying that there's only one person that can. There's only one sovereign that can actually provide the same type of services we can provide, and that is Our number one foreign adversary. So you're going to have to make the choice whether we address the issues that we want with AI and make sure that our laws are strong enough to prevent the parade of horribles, while at the same time recognize that we have to win this race. Because if we don't, if we don't dictate the terms, China will. And if you think that the Chinese government cares at all about whether or not your child is getting addicted to your service, I point you to one data point that I think should resonate with virtually everyone. When TikTok was solely owned by ByteDance, that the company that was attuned to the Chinese government and had a lot of connections to the Chinese government, they did not care that kids were eating ipods as a challenge. They did nothing to stop it. TikTok was, was not there to be a market differentiator. It was there as a surveillance and espionage tool and also in my, from my perspective, a complete Chinese psyop. And that really did impact not just, not just young adults, but teens and kids. Kids were dying on this platform. And if you want to see what they, what the the type of Tick Tock that you got in Beijing, they were that tick that. I forgot what the actual name of the company was. But the same company that was basically a rebranded Tick Tock was showing their kids science videos and showing them how to do certain projects and how to engaging with parents. And they had time limits on it. Like the Chinese government basically gave their the best version of their services to their population and gave us trash because that was beneficial to them. This is not an organization that you want to take lightly. And this is not a time to take our foot off the gas. We need to be able to one charge ahead and make sure that we are preserving the things that make us American, preserve the things that make us that happy and healthy and at the same time rid of, rid ourselves of all the parts of the technology that we don't like. But that is up to us, that it should not be up to a foreign adversary. And I'm afraid if we go down this route of just saying the infrastructure is inherently bad or AI is inherently bad, we are going to cede the race to an entire organization of people who do not care about our own form of flourishing. And that to me is a very scary prospect.
Sandy Rios: And let me just ask you a basic question, Joel, and this will show my non technical side. all right. Is it not possible? I'll answer my own Question. No, it's not. But the question can. Is there a way for Americans not to be overtaken by Chinese AI? I mean, how. I guess it's all in the air and all in the wires and through. I guess it's not possible. I mean, because, you could think there'd be. There could be a division like, this is American AI, this is a Chinese. And. And you choose what you want. But I guess they tell me how that works and why we can't do something like that.
Joel Thayer: So I think it depends on what you mean by works, right? So, like, if. If. For me, the question is always, where is the incentive structure for these companies? Even like a Chinese company? Like, if you want to. If you have very stringent laws that say, you know, you cannot surveil or you cannot engage in this type of bias or, for instance, we actually did do that, in a certain respect where we started to say, look, if you have a company that has a lot of background deals or potentially even direct, connection to the Chinese government, you are banned from this country and you cannot operate here, nor can any other company work with you, called the TikTok divestment law. But that can also be applied to a lot of these different apps, and that regime can be applied to these types of systems as well. And I also think that the president right now is weighing that option. I don't know if you've, been following, but there's a very hard conversation that, this president is having with these companies about the use of using open weighted models from, from Chinese companies. And there's a consideration that he should ban it. Now, that might be. That might be an option. I don't know. I. The devil's in the details and all that stuff, so I'll reserve my opinions on it. But my. The instinct, I think, is right where you are acknowledging that these companies are. These are. Sorry, this. The Chinese enter, Chinese governmental enterprise is certainly trying to steal the technology from here and repurpose it and repackage it and send it back to us to do all sorts of nefarious stuff. And I think the president is taking proactive steps to thwart that threat while at the same time allowing our companies to force. So part of it is just figuring out what the guardrails are and where the threats. Where the threats seem to be. And it seems like this president is very, is very concerned and considering all of those options. So for me, part of it, you know, there's a know your customer type, regime that you can, you can engage in where like if you're anthropic or open AI and one of your customers, they deal with a lot of enterprises and one of your enterprises as weird connections to the Chinese government, maybe you shouldn't be selling to them if you want to do business here. Like that should be something that we should all agree to. At a very basic level. I'm also very concerned about the idea that using Chinese using Chinese models is the or allowing, allowing Chinese models to train on our models, also known as distillation is a good thing too. That should not be a practice that we have in the US we should also limit the amount of interactions these these developers have with those types of companies and those types of development because frankly, although I'm all for the idea of free and fair trading, China doesn't play fair. They integrate to our systems, they steal our technology and then they repackage it to us. So that is not a fair trade. Until they to play ball with us on a, on a real fundamental level. They shouldn't be part of this part of the, our development. We should be making this homegrown. So there is, there are options that we can employ. I think the government, I think the President is reviewing several of those options. But again this is going to be a very hard fought conversation. And so I am not of the, I'm not of that that think that we have, that China has already kind of won.
I really love the solutions you suggested Joel. They make a lot of sense to me
We're going to use them out infinitum and I don't think we're there yet. I think that we are very much in the lead in this, in this conversation and we have the ability to keep us in that leadership position. We did it in 5G. We can certainly do.
Sandy Rios: I really love the solutions you suggested Joel. They make a lot of sense to me. bias, treating all media the same, child safety. And what was the other, digital sovereignty.
Joel Thayer: I can't remember digital sovereignty. So you should, you should own your data, not the company.
Sandy Rios: Yeah, yeah. So if we can set that up, I think people will be much more at peace.
Sandy: I think AI can be used as a sense of augmentedness
One thing that just a practical thing that helps me to understand why there are good things about AI and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that AI is the reason DOGE was able to go through all of the agencies or departments of the United States government and make all of these assessments about who wasn't working, who was working, who was wasting money, who wasn't wasting Money. Isn't that. Wasn't it AI that they employed to do that?
Joel Thayer: Yeah, in part. I mean, so, again, it was an augmented intelligence. So the, The AI basically just flagged things for a real person to review. And I think that's how AI should operate in those contexts, because those are real human decisions. Regardless of how you feel about, an individual government bureaucrat, they're a person, they have a job, and AI can get it wrong. That's why you need humans as a backstop to make sure that we're making the right choices. And I think that. And so a large part of it was that, Doge was first letting the AI just based off certain parameters, figure out exactly where the waste was and how the waste was being used and who really wasn't showing up to work based on.
Sandy Rios: Right, that's right.
Joel Thayer: Yeah. And so if it created a report so a human can review that and go, wait a minute, what is going on here? Like, why are we paying you 80,000, $90,000 a year and you're not even coming to work? You're not even coming. You haven't been to the building in three years. So what is going on here? You need to either come back, or we need to figure out what you actually do here. And so I think AI can be used as a sense of augmentedness, capabilities, as opposed to a complete replacement. And that's why I thought what Doge did on the front end was actually a very smart thing to do. You allow the technology to basically find the issues that you've deemed as fraud and wasteful, and then you have humans making the actual conscious decision as to whether or not the AI was right or wrong. That, I think, is. That is one great example of how you can apply AI and not completely remove the human element out of this. Because no one wants a robot deciding whether or not you're productive or not. You want. You want an actual human reviewing what the robot has done and either agree or disagree with its conclusion. To me, that is the. That is the counterbalance. And as a strict constitution, I'm a big fan of separating of powers. I do. And I, as a strict conservative, I do not like concentrated authority. I certainly don't like concentrated authority when it's a machine over a human. The backstop should always be human first. We should have human first policy. And I think that the example you alluded to, I think, is the right answer, which is, look, you use AI as a tool to do a certain thing, but it's ultimately the humans that decide the fate of a particular instance because we are the ones accountable to each other. We're, we're Americans, we're a community, and we have to stand up for each other. We don't need to offset that to a robot.
Sandy Rios: Joel, I think you just answered my last question because I was going to ask you, in, a perfect world, what would a good AI look like? And I think you just answered that. So listen, thank you so much for making this much clearer to us. I want to add one little data point that I learned as I was reading. One of these companies building these data centers has done some research to discover a, way of cutting down the usage of water, by 90%. Don't ask me where or who. I can't remember. I just read that. So there are people that are really working to make this thing, these data centers, better for communities. And I, I just thought that's a, I wanted to mention that.
Joel Thayer: So, Joe, I couldn't agree with you more like that that is how we ought to be using technology. It should be used to promote humanity. And I think that's one example that you pointed to that where. That's a great data point.
Sandy Rios: Yeah. All right, good. Ah, Joel Thayer, senior fellow for AI and Emerging technology for the, America First Policy Institute and also the president of the Digital Progress Institute. And Joel, thank you so much. thank you. And, this is Sandy rios on Sandy Rios 24. 7.
Abortions performed by Planned Parenthood accounted for the top four leading causes
Joel Thayer: This is Sandy Rios 247 on American Family Radio.
Sandy Rios: Abortions performed by Planned Parenthood were among the top leading causes of death in America, revealing the terrifying truth of the left's anti life agenda. According to Planned Parenthood's 202223 annual report, Abortions performed by the organization accounted for the top four leading causes of death. Think about that. Paid for by our tax dollars. And honestly, this freight train is going down the track so fast and so powerfully. It's really hard. It's going to be hard for us to stop this. And I think one of the best ways, I've said before, I'll say again, is preborn. PreBorn, who was not part of the government, not part of the public debate or campaigns, but an organization that's simply providing ultrasounds for moms who are pregnant and doubting whether they should carry the baby to allow them to see their baby through ultrasound. It's an amazing process and it actually works. When, the moms see their babies, I think it doubles the chance that they will not take the life of their baby. You know, you can't beat those odds. If you'd like to help, $28 pays for one ultrasound. Just one. And you can send however much you can afford. Go to preborn.com sandy that's preborn.com sandy the Sandy Rios 24. 7 podcast are available at afr.net back to Sandy Rios 24. 7 on American Family Radio.
Tech companies are increasingly using data centers to train and operate artificial intelligence systems
What is a data center? A data center houses rows of computers and equipment for storing, processing and transmitting data. They typically have few windows and extra security, including cameras and sometimes biometric screening. The computers need a lot of electricity to operate and to keep the equipment from overheating. That also requires more electricity and huge amounts of water for elaborate air conditioning. The International Energy Agency says one large data center uses the same amount of electricity as it takes to power 400,000 electric cars. Tech companies are increasingly using their data centers to train and operate artificial intelligence systems. Training an AI model to learn from huge amounts of data requires additional computing power. Conventional data center services run on processors known as CPUs. AI relies on graphics processing units, or GPUs. The IEA estimates that asking OpenAI's ChatGPT to compose an answer requires nearly 10 times as much electricity as a traditional Google search. Amazon, Microsoft and Google have all announced plans to tap into nuclear energy to help power their users, US Data centers. They've also helped finance new wind and solar farms and, other alternative energy sources. In the near term, however, most data centers are still heavily reliant on the surrounding electricity grid, which is largely powered by burning fossil fuels, the primary cause of global warming. This is making it harder for some countries and tech companies to keep their promises to address climate change.
Sandy Rios: Well, that's an AP report. So forget about the global warming thing because, you know, I don't, I don't adhere certainly to their philosophy on that. But on the AI centers, I thought they did a really good job of explaining, what they do, what they look like and the requirements that they have. So, and after that long discussion that we've had with Joel, I think hopefully you'll have a good idea. In Louisiana, they put this data center in, an area that was not developed and would not develop into anything productive because of the land. I can't explain it further than that. And my friend who is there in the middle of all of this tells me that this area is just suddenly thriving. People are getting jobs, there are restaurants being built, and it was just a rural, area where there was not, not a good economy. So that's what's happening in Louisiana. And the idea is, I guess as these centers are being built in remote areas in other places in the country, the same thing will happen to those local areas. But it does need. The local authorities must be very, very shrewd about the agreements they make with these companies because the companies, you know, they're smart and they've been around the block a bit and it's kind of new to some of the smaller, smaller communities, which I'm from a smaller community, so. So it's. All these details are new to me too. So. And with the, the stopgap measures that Joel presented, I thought it was. I was very impressed with that, to create an AI that is, has no bias, that treats all data the same. I love that. And also child safety, for heaven. I sake. I think of Chat GPT and all the horrors we've heard about how it's befriended kids and talked them into suicide. Have you heard that? And that has. That's just. That's vulgar and foul and has to stop. So I'm assuming he means things like that. And then of course, Digital. Digital solve sovereignty over our own information, that these companies don't own our information. So if we can, and you know, Joel's in a position that he could actually make those. He could make those things happen. It has to be passed, I suppose, by Congress, but he would know how to write the legislation, how to push it, how to present it. And so I, I feel better with, A.I. if those things take place. But I just wanted you to have a better understanding because again, this is a big deal for some of the midterms. And I think it's important that we all understand not only for the sake of voting, but also just understanding for our own sake. Because if it comes to our communities, we need to know, we need to be informed. And so hopefully now you are. I want to remind you that PreBorn is our sponsor. And they make it possible for me to bring this information to you. Besides that, they're in the business of saving the lives of babies. And they do that by showing the moms who are hesitant or confused, ultrasound pictures, photos, videos of their baby in utero. And it just works beautifully. And guess why? Because I think it's God's way. It's just truth that you can't deny. And so PreBorn does that. It's $28 for every ultrasound. If you'd like to help, go to preborn.com sandy that's preborn.com sandy. Well, thank you so much for listening to today's edition of Sandy Rios. 24 7.
we unravel the complex relationship between artificial intelligence and local communities, particularly focusing on the impact of data centers in Michigan. Join Sandy Rios as she discusses the potential implications of these massive infrastructures on midterm elections and community dynamics, featuring insights from AI expert Joel Thayer. We explore the environmental, economic, and ethical questions surrounding AI development, and how it shapes our future.
(00:00) An AI data center in Michigan could affect the midterm elections
(04:17) Most women are ordering abortion pills, and it is two pills
(06:41) Facebook is building a massive data center in Louisiana; some consumer advocates not satisfied
(09:06) Sandy Rios speaks with Joel Thayer about artificial intelligence
(10:55) Why do we need massive AI centers to power all of this AI
(13:25) People really resisted cars, Joel says
(15:00) Every legislator should be very aware of how data centers impact the individual consumer
(20:51) Joel Metta: I think President Trump is right on data center issue
(30:17) Joel Steinberg: I think we need a federal privacy law
(39:23) Why are we so concerned about beating China in AI? Explain, please
(47:38) I really love the solutions you suggested Joel. They make a lot of sense to me
(48:15) Sandy: I think AI can be used as a sense of augmentedness
(52:41) Abortions performed by Planned Parenthood accounted for the top four leading causes
(54:30) Tech companies are increasingly using data centers to train and operate artificial intelligence systems
we unravel the complex relationship between artificial intelligence and local communities, particularly focusing on the impact of data centers in Michigan. Join Sandy Rios as she discusses the potential implications of these massive infrastructures on midterm elections and community dynamics, featuring insights from AI expert Joel Thayer. We explore the environmental, economic, and ethical questions surrounding AI development, and how it shapes our future.
(00:00) An AI data center in Michigan could affect the midterm elections
(04:17) Most women are ordering abortion pills, and it is two pills
(06:41) Facebook is building a massive data center in Louisiana; some consumer advocates not satisfied
(09:06) Sandy Rios speaks with Joel Thayer about artificial intelligence
(10:55) Why do we need massive AI centers to power all of this AI
(13:25) People really resisted cars, Joel says
(15:00) Every legislator should be very aware of how data centers impact the individual consumer
(20:51) Joel Metta: I think President Trump is right on data center issue
(30:17) Joel Steinberg: I think we need a federal privacy law
(39:23) Why are we so concerned about beating China in AI? Explain, please
(47:38) I really love the solutions you suggested Joel. They make a lot of sense to me
(48:15) Sandy: I think AI can be used as a sense of augmentedness
(52:41) Abortions performed by Planned Parenthood accounted for the top four leading causes
(54:30) Tech companies are increasingly using data centers to train and operate artificial intelligence systems
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