San Francisco · Anthropic · OpenAI · U.S. · Donald Trump · The Atlantic Technology
Some three-quarters of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area
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Yet in cloistered San Francisco, where the reporter live, staffers at OpenAI and Anthropic are developing this same feared technology at light speed and pulling down compensation packages that stretch to considerably more than $1 million.
Key facts
- Some of the biggest and perhaps only lasting successes over the past 15 years of American politics—the Tea Party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, MAGA, and election denialism—have been fueled by outrage
- Yet in cloistered San Francisco, where the reporter live, staffers at OpenAI and Anthropic are developing this same feared technology at light speed and pulling down compensation packages that stretch
- In Michigan, both Abdul El-Sayed and William Lawrence, who is a co-founder of Sunrise, won Democratic primaries as progressive candidates hammering against data centers
- Silicon Valley’s growth is largely unencumbered by regulation, and President Trump’s administration has if anything used its authority to speed the AI industry along
Summary
If there’s one thing America seems to agree on, it’s AI. The group—which formally launched today and calls itself Irreplaceable, as in people are irreplaceable by machines —has an audacious and perhaps naive vision. The organization is staffed with people who made a name for themselves in the climate movement, and they are hoping to avoid past mistakes by focusing on the emotional reaction Americans are having to AI, rather than anchoring their work in white papers and policy recommendations. Phil Aroneanu, Irreplaceable’s executive director and a co-founder of the climate organization 350.org, told me he believes that climate advocates initially floundered because they acted as policy wonks. For climate, that meant fossil-fuel-divestment campaigns, protesting oil pipelines, and the school strikes led by Greta Thunberg.