Essay by Eric Worrall
But history has a hard lesson for those who ban or restrict economically important technologies.
The Guardian view on AI politics: US datacentre protests are a warning to big tech
Mon 13 Apr 2026 02.42 AEST
In both Republican and Democratic states, scepticism and hostility towards an unregulated construction boom is growing
When blue-collar Trump voters and Maga-friendly midwest states join the same cause as Bernie Sanders and liberal California teachers, something novel is afoot. Last month it was the turn of the Republican party in Texas to expressforthright opposition to the construction of datacentres for artificial intelligence, pending adequate environmental safeguards for local communities. Across the United States, similar campaigns are being waged, as voters from across the political spectrum rail against the outsize influence and power of big tech.
For the White House, which has made the rapid rollout of datacentres a priority in its AI action plan, the scale of the protests is an unwelcome surprise. ……
Democrats have been slow to spot the political potential of an issue that pits the interests of the world’s most powerful corporations against those of concerned local communities. But having in some cases aggressively competed to attract big-tech-related investment, senior figures such as Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, are now stressing the need to avoid an unregulated free-for-all.
…These are surely early skirmishes in a wider battle, as the politics of AI play out. A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that 56% of experts on AI think it will have a positive impact on the US over the next 20 years. Only 17% of all Americans thought the same.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/12/the-guardian-view-on-ai-politics-us-datacentre-protests-are-a-warning-to-big-tech
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There is an obvious opportunity for politicians opposed to President Trump’s AI push, but the choice of whether to exploit concerns about AI carries some risk. AI companies are offering serious funding to politicians who support their businesses, and I have a funny suspicion politicians opposed to AI might find themselves disappearing off web search rankings maintained by businesses whose profitability depends on AI.
AI becomes contentious issue in midterms over donations
PUBLISHED WED, APR 15 20265:30 AM EDT
Emily Wilkins@EMRWILKINS
- AI PAC Leading the Future raked in another $15 million in the first three months of the year, according to the group.
- The PAC recently endorsed five House Democrats for reelection.
- A coalition of anti-Big Tech groups is sending a letter exclusively obtained by CNBC to lawmakers asking them to denounce the PAC.
Funding from AI groups is becoming a flashpoint in the 2026 midterm elections, as a major political action committee that launched in 2025 with support from AI companies announced its latest fundraising haul.
Super PAC Leading the Future will announce Wednesday it has raised $15 million in the first quarter of 2026 across all of its entities, bringing the group’s total haul for the 2026 election season to $140 million. The group’s backers include venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, SV Angel founder Ron Conway and AI software company Perplexity.
The group has backed candidates of both parties in the midterms. It also recently endorsed five House Democrats: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) and Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.).
But a coalition of groups led by The Tech Oversight Project, an advocacy group that seeks to break up big tech companies, is pressuring those same Democrats to denounce the group that’s supporting them.
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Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/ai-2026-elections-midterms-campaign-donations.html
Should the USA restrict AI anyway?
I know a lot of WUWT readers have an unfavourable view of AI. But history has a hard lesson for those who reject technological advances.
The Ottoman caliphate from the 16th to 18th centuries was a leading global superpower of its day. The Ottomans controlled much of Southern Europe, Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Only desperate Christian defensive actions such as the Battle of Vienna in 1683 and legendary borderlands leaders like Vlad the Impaler prevented the Ottomans from overrunning all of Europe.
But right at the height of their power, the Ottomans made a critical mistake which cost them everything. After witnessing the chaos of the religious reformation in Europe, caused by Guttenberg’s invention of the Printing Press in the mid 1400s, the Ottomans decided to halt the flow of dangerous new ideas into the caliphate by restricting mechanised printing.
“We over-regulated a technology, which was the printing press,” said Al Olama [UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence]. “It was adopted everywhere on Earth. The Middle East banned it for 200 years. “The calligraphers came to the sultan and said: ‘We’re going to lose our jobs, do something to protect us’—so job loss protection, very similar to AI,” the UAE minister explained. “The religious scholars said people are going to print fake versions of the Quran and corrupt society—misinformation, second reason.” Lastly Al Olama said it was the fear of the unknown that led to this fateful decision. “The top advisors of the sultan said: ‘We actually do not know what this technology is going to do, let us ban it, see what happens to other societies and then reconsider,’” he explained. – AEI
This restriction on technology had a catastrophic impact on the Ottoman economy and their status as a global superpower. While other nations raced ahead, embracing new industry and military capabilities, the Ottoman Empire abandoned progress. Within a few short centuries they fell from being a world class power, to becoming the plaything of other great powers, finally suffering the humiliation of national dismemberment as the new global leaders carved up and claimed former Ottoman territories with the signing of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres.
The reasons the Ottomans used to justify banning the printing press seem oddly familiar :- “We’re going to lose our jobs”, “misinformation”, “let’s ban it, see what happens to other countries and then reconsider”.
The concerns identified by the Ottomans were legitimate, but the Ottomans response to those concerns led to disaster. In the West the problems identified by the Ottomans were faced headon and solved. New laws on copyright made plagiarism manageable. Libel laws, and the rise of authoritative bodies such as the Royal Society, and widely published standard reference works such as the King James Bible, addressed the problem of misinformation, at least for a time. And all those scribes who lost their jobs in the West discovered their talents were still useful, after printers realised they still sometimes needed elegant hand drawn images and calligraphy.
Now the world faces those same old world problems in a new form. The old solutions we developed during the age of the printing press have failed. So we also face a choice – whether to deal with these reincarnated old world problems head-on, as our ancestors did, or whether to hide our heads in the sand like the Ottomans did.
I understand people who are concerned about AI messing up the kids, and AI automating away everyone’s job, because as a father and as a software developer I also share those concerns. My kid watches too much online AI slop, helping a child navigate these new pitfalls is a real challenge. As for my work, automating my profession of software development is a major goal of AI companies.
But the one thing which is worse than learning how to adapt to and deal with these challenges, learning how to keep our kids safe and how to continue to be economically valuable in the new world order, is to be like the Ottoman Empire, to try to stop the clock. Because while great powers and empires can sometimes briefly stop the clock within their borders, the protection offered by stopping the clock is always incomplete and temporary. The barbarians at the gate who have embraced the new ways rapidly grow in strength, until the gates can no longer hold. Then the once great power crumbles and falls before new capabilities they are helpless to defeat.
