In Saline, Michigan, residents showed up to township meetings carrying signs that read “No data center” and “Protect our future – no big data,” according to Fortune. Not exactly the welcome mat tech companies expected. A 2025 Quinnipiac poll found 55% of Americans believe AI will do more harm than good in daily life. That skepticism has migrated from polling data into streets and voting booths — and politicians are catching the shrapnel.
The Data Center Problem Nobody Warned You About
AI runs on massive physical infrastructure that drinks water, devours electricity, and creates surprisingly few jobs.
Every ChatGPT query, every AI-generated image, every cloud backup hits a data center somewhere. These facilities demand staggering resources. Consider what’s landing in Michigan communities right now:
- A proposed Google data center in Van Buren Township needs roughly 2.7 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power about 2 million homes, according to Fortune.
- More than 30 data center projects have been proposed across Michigan in just two years.
- The Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority flat-out refused to supply water for a University of Michigan–Los Alamos National Laboratory data center project. Michigan’s Legislature then passed sales and use tax exemptions for data center operators, sweetening deals while residents shoulder infrastructure costs.
Scholars studying these projects note that data centers “don’t really create very many jobs,” according to Fortune. The classic NIMBY fight got a software update — server farms replacing pipelines and nuclear plants as the infrastructure nobody wants next door.
The Bentley University–Gallup survey found Americans “see more harm than good from the use of AI, believe it will cost U.S. jobs and do not trust businesses to use it responsibly.” A full 70% expect AI to decrease job opportunities, per Quinnipiac. Meanwhile, 61% want more control over how AI touches their lives, up six points from 2024, according to Pew Research…