Editorial: R-E-S-P-E-C-T is the only way for AI advocates to deal with data center haters

The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune on Sep 12, 2026

Published in Op Eds

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The rapid backlash to data centers and artificial intelligence has taken many in the tech and finance worlds by surprise.

Understandable. Only a few short years ago, states and municipalities were competing with each other to lure data center developers, dangling tax incentives for projects they thought would create jobs and generate tax revenue. The sudden reversal in public opinion has whipsawed politicians as it has business people.

The politicians, though, have reacted to the new political reality far more quickly than have the business people.

Gov. JB Pritzker in June suspended state tax breaks for data centers that had been in effect since 2020, with 27 data centers built since then that collectively have saved nearly $1 billion in taxes via the incentives. Pritzker’s idea was to slow data center growth and give Springfield time to pass comprehensive new regulations for the industry.

In other parts of the country, state policymakers are going yet further, pursuing clawbacks of tax breaks already given to developers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

So how are industry representatives and sympathizers responding? We see many of them on public platforms expressing amazement that so many ordinary citizens have turned on data centers and reacting by virtually insulting the intelligence of those opponents.

The AI and data center industries have a cheerleader in President Donald Trump, who in a recent Truth Social post more crudely echoed their insulting rhetoric. “The only reason that communities should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” he posted.

Examples abound of disdainful or dismissive comments from the self-professed masters of the universe on why so many are against data centers in their communities. “Most explanations of why data centers are actually fine boil down to simple math,” former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong wrote on X. “The majority of people do not understand simple math.”

Alternatively, industry figures theorize that Chinese propaganda is fueling the surging antagonism throughout “flyover country.”

Additionally, in ham-fisted ways, some of them attempt to tie the opposition to the rise in socialism in the Democratic Party, seemingly ignoring the bipartisan nature of the collective recoil. Polls show 70% or more of Americans oppose data centers in their communities. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, no one’s idea of a socialist or a liberal, recently imposed a moratorium on data center development in the Lone Star State, prompting Trump last month to call the decision “a mistake.”

So take your pick, data center opponent: The only possible explanations for your stance, according to various tech and finance bros, is that you’re stupid, prone to manipulation, a Luddite or a Trotskyite.

That you might have good reason to be highly wary of AI and the massive data centers necessary for the technology? The possibility doesn’t seem to occur to the advocates.

In reality there are legitimate reasons to be concerned that our country had been developing AI and the associated data centers at breakneck speed with scant concern about the long-term consequences, which are extraordinarily far-reaching.

In northern Illinois, as we’ve discussed, the outsized electricity consumption of data centers already has translated directly into higher electric bills. Some more responsible representatives of the industry have acknowledged the need to supply additional power required to enable the sort of growth they envision. But the state has yet to settle on a regulatory approach to ensure ratepayers don’t see their bills continue to rise due to data center demand.

There are reasonable worries, too, about how corporate adoption of AI could cause dramatic white-collar job losses.

Even beyond the practical concerns of utility bills and employment, there are dystopian fears that the technology itself eventually could become so sophisticated that its creators lose control, with consequences we can’t even predict. We’re now seeing warnings from those working for the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI that the companies are so intent on winning this new version of the space race that they’re acting irresponsibly.

So moratoriums by state and local governments don’t strike us as fundamentally illogical. They demand that developers of AI respond to opponents not with insults but with convincing answers to their concerns.

And with the understanding that making AI a force for good is far more important than the speed at which it’s adopted.

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