Impending Disaster
Top AI Researchers Terrified of a “Chernobyl Moment”: a Mass Casualty Event, or Worse, That Turns the World Against AI Forever
“AI doesn’t need a Chernobyl moment.”
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-chernobyl-moment?fbclid=IwdGRjcAVcrxVjbGNrBVyvBmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEfJSIgY1KnTCJrrtkMxRELgJv-OlIQE-46-ClCt6BJpumOiItntNsBxoHkWvI_aem_5CsQFG2P1lZLIgjDnvrHmQ

Does Not Compute
OpenAI Hears Voters’ Overwhelming Rebuke To Data Centers, Vows to Build More of Them
You’ll get more data centers and you’ll like it.
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/openai-voters-more-data-centers?fbclid=IwdGRjcAVcrrFjbGNrBVyun2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEf3mAl5B6ql3hwRjvj8O6J7hnBt6WEdgZEYScc8CGnjK83q1T4aYQ4D7XiL6Y_aem_PTzaGhIae30bRBsjeT8EHQ

The “blue tsunami” that swept over the midterm elections made it clear that voters are sick of tech billionaires meddling in politics, opposed to data center construction, and deeply suspicious of the AI industry.

But OpenAI chief financial officer Sarah Friar apparently didn’t get that memo. In an interview with CNBC on Friday, she vowed that OpenAI would keep pouring money into data center construction so it can please its corporate customers — voters be damned.

Tech-tastrophe
The Tech Industry Went All in on Trump, and Now They’re in Serious Danger Now That Americans Have Turned on Him
They gambled… and lost.
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/tech-companies-danger-trump?fbclid=IwdGRjcAVcrHJjbGNrBVysTmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEfI8GetYkU6ByGnbvS-rf1P_V9w_mBcsCm0YT_tyVhC9iYJt6SemwiWzjw3rM_aem_GD1BaXbV-WnJzcpYHgxl9g

Tech companies threw their lot in with Donald Trump, and now, following a blue tsunami, they’re poised to pay the price. If it wasn’t already clear before the first vote was cast, it’s now undeniable that these midterm elections were in no small part a referendum on Big Tech.

A preponderance of Democratic candidates for congress, the senate, and state governorship supported some form of data center moratorium. Across ten states, Ballotpedia showed, over 40 ballot measures were put forth related to regulating data centers. A full 56 percent of Americans considered AI and data centers a crucial or major factor in their votes, according to NBC News exit polls. Many of the Democratic challengers, including senator-elect Sherrod Brown in Ohio, flipped seats while raging against data center construction.

“What we just witnessed was an AI earthquake,” Brad Carson, co-founder of Americans for Responsible Innovation, told Axios. “Voters just sent a clear message that they want rules for AI and data centers.”

Greg Casar, a Texas Democratic congressman who just secured reelection, echoed this analogy, calling the election an “early tremor of a much bigger AI earthquake upending American politics.”

One of the biggest setbacks to the tech industry is Gina Hinojosa’s victory in the Texas governor race, defeating Republican incumbent Greg Abott. Texas is where many AI companies are banking building their data center empires, holding an overwhelming 27 percent of the entire country’s planned data center capacity, according to widely-cited Wells Fargo data. Many tech figures have spent the past few years relocating operations there, including former trillionaire Elon Musk.

“The entire AI industry made this giant levered bet on the idea that they’d be able to build [data centers] in Texas,” Sam Koppelman at Hunterbrook Media, an investigative journalism outlet, told Politico. “This election totally changed that.”

Musk encapsulated the palpable sense of dread over this new reality in a post-elections tweet: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”

Dan Ives, a partner at the bank Yorkville Ives & Co, was more direct. “There is no way to sugarcoat that Democrats taking control especially over the Senate will create some major hurdles for AI and tech legislation in the Beltway over the next 2 years,” he said in a note, quoted by CNBC.

Beyond the issue of data centers themselves, Republican candidates lost because they reeked of big tech money.

Also leaving a lasting impression on voters is how Big Tech has constantly appeased president Trump and complied with even his most arbitrary whims. Trump demanded that the term “artificial intelligence” be rebranded as “Super Intelligence,” and AI companies, with a straight face, started using it in their communications. Google renamed the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario after Trump said so. Let’s not forget that Mark Zuckerberg was caught on camera admitting to Trump that he made up an AI spending number just to please him. They fawned over him at his inauguration, and were all smiles when they joined him in the White House to sign a non-binding agreement to regulate themselves. Might have to rethink how that one looks after this midterm season.

Goldman Sachs bans non-engineers from using advanced AI tools
The policy, instituted due to risk and productivity concerns, has frustrated traders who used the tools for financial modeling and other purposes, Bloomberg reported.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91636500/goldman-sachs-bans-non-engineers-from-using-advanced-ai-tools?fbclid=IwVERDUAVcZVFleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mBXNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABH1maN6T4jxEGF_dDBnhm97Hd-Z8fa0OZuz_YGjdUKyZczeEU5uVTQ40Ksf1s_aem_z0vo_wn11cljO3Dn9ztGsw

Goldman Sachs has banned traders, bankers, and other staff from using advanced AI coding tools because of risk and productivity concerns.

The bank is limiting access to tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code and Microsoft’s GitHub to engineers and so-called “strats”—an investment banking term for workers who specialize in quantitative engineering and analytics—Bloomberg reported this week.

The move reportedly frustrated traders who used the tools to monitor data, build financial models, and produce graphics, among other things.

It also appears to undermine comments from Goldman chief information officer Marco Argenti in July, when he praised nontechnical staff using AI to build software prototypes before passing them to engineers for refinement.

A Goldman spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company allows staff to experiment with certain AI tools “to determine the best use cases across different parts of the firm” and to assess “a variety of factors including productivity and risk management.”

Once the experimental period ends, “we put [the tools] in the hands of those who are best suited to leverage them for the long term,” he said.

Wall Street institutions have been wrestling with how to balance speed versus safety in AI adoption. Last month, JPMorgan Chase chief information officer Lori Beer said that artificial intelligence is evolving so quickly that it can be difficult to assess the risks in real time.

“We want to move at speed, but sometimes we must pull back to get controls in place,” she said. “The technology is running ahead of capabilities to manage it.”

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has urged caution about allowing AI agents to operate without human supervision, specifically saying investment bankers need to carefully check the accuracy of AI-generated pitchbooks and spreadsheets. “The risk [is] letting it start getting answers without humans checking to make sure the answer was right,” he said in September.

Of course, banks also remain eager to capitalize on AI’s potential benefits.

Goldman’s internal AI initiatives include a proprietary chatbot, which is available to all employees, and a “copilot” coding tool for developers. As of September 2025, it was also piloting an autonomous coding agent and a copilot tool for investment bankers to help them compile research.

Every major new technology, from photography to the computer, provoked the same debate about whether it could ever produce real art.

Philosopher Henry Shevlin argues that AI is no different, and that the question worth asking isn’t whether AI can make art, but whether human creativity can push beyond it.

“A gifted human artist like Monet or Picasso can move beyond the constraints of the art world they inhabit and create a bridge to truly novel forms of representation. Could an image model ever do that?” asks Shevlin.

Tap the link to read the full article. https://iai.tv/articles/the-artist-is-dead-ai-killed-them-auid-2275

Should the US ban AI that becomes smarter than humans?

Some Democrats now say yes, and they want it at the top of the agenda once their party takes over Congress.

A day after Democrats won both the House and the Senate, Arizona Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari wrote on X that “day 1” priorities must include a pause on advanced AI development, regulation of the industry and a ban on artificial superintelligence. Senator Bernie Sanders followed on Thursday, also calling for a national moratorium on AI data centres.

Their call is built on an existing bill. The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act was introduced in September by Sanders in the Senate and Representative Greg Casar in the House, with Ansari among its backers.

What the bill would do:

• Permanently ban developing or deploying artificial superintelligence, defined as AI that outperforms humans across most fields or could destroy or disempower humanity
• Pause the most advanced AI development until safety rules are in place
• Create a new cabinet-level Department of Artificial Intelligence to write those rules and approve advanced systems
• Set penalties of up to 20 years in prison for serious violations
• Push for international agreements so the technology is not built elsewhere

The bill has not been passed. The new Congress only sits from January, and any such law would also face President Trump’s veto. Not every Democrat backs an outright ban, and the AI industry is expected to push back hard.

Investors reacted fast. Fears of tighter AI rules helped drive Thursday’s heavy sell-off in tech stocks.

Should governments ban superintelligent AI, or regulate it? Let us know in the comments.

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Superintelligence #USPolitics #Tech

Mixed Messaging
Sam Altman Makes Weird Tweet After Bruising Midterm Results
What is he talking about?
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-weird-tweet-midterm-results?fbclid=IwdGRjcAVb5hhjbGNrBVvmA2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEfkrIC4WMSE-dqEkOUTnALh_k-Gpeuxu1sDtMeFyJTEqi66Eayn1jslZ0IePw_aem_UUyD1z81SMylDeBMwymMLA

The Republican party wasn’t the only loser following a historic Democratic victory following this year’s midterm elections. Big Tech suffered a bruising defeat as well, with dozens of ballot measures across the country calling for more restrictions on data centers, along with a rash of newly-minted elected officials who campaigned on holding the industry accountable.

It was one of the clearest rebukes of AI yet, demonstrating how frustrated the American people have become as they’ve watched an elite group of tech billionaires amass unprecedented power, influence, and wealth — while explicitly threatening the job market and even human survival.

For tech leaders who have chosen to kiss the ring in an undignified race to cozy up to Trump, it’s an awkward reality check. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has spent years by the president’s side and secretly met with him at a GOP convention, is seemingly struggling to make sense of the news.

In an awkwardly-worded and difficult-to-parse tweet, Altman mused that “people should always be in control of the future.”

“OpenAI is against the notion that it would be acceptable for people to be relegated to a role of doing things that ‘AI systems think makes sense to reward in humans,’” he wrote. “People should not cede control of the future to superintelligence, and that requirement should ultimately constrain AI progress.”

The subject of an AI slowdown has been a major litmus test of the federal government’s willingness to intervene and establish a set of rules for the industry.

Read more from this investigation: https://bbc.in/3X9PAUB

Read more: https://thenewamerican.com/us/voters-revolt-against-ai-data-centers-rebuking-trumps-technocratic-agenda/

American voters have delivered a clear message to the artificial intelligence industry and the Trump administration: They have no intention of sacrificing their communities for the promised wonders of AI.

Poll after poll had already documented widespread public opposition to data centers, which consume enormous amounts of electricity, water, and land. But the stakes extend far beyond environmental and economic costs. These facilities also provide the computing backbone of an expanding technocratic state, enabling mass data collection, government surveillance, automated decision-making, and increasingly sophisticated systems of social control.

Washington and Silicon Valley wanted more of them, and quickly.