{"id":86921,"date":"2026-06-26T11:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T11:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/86921\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T11:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T11:11:17","slug":"column-how-fearmongering-sets-policy-from-marihuana-to-solar-to-a-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/86921\/","title":{"rendered":"Column: How fearmongering sets policy, from ‘marihuana’ to solar to A.I."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the race to build \u2014 or stop the construction of \u2014 data centers across the country, it\u2019s important to remember no government is spending more on artificial intelligence than America. In fact, according to the Brookings Institute, the number of AI contracts<\/a> within the federal government has risen from 472 in 2022 to more than 1,700 in 2026.<\/p>\n

Most of the spending \u2014 $90 billion \u2014 is by the Department of Defense, however other departments \u2014 Commerce, Health and Human Services, NASA \u2014 are spending tens of millions. So regardless of how one may feel about AI, we are all tied to its use.<\/p>\n

Site locations and the economic benefits of data centers can be debated, but there\u2019s no getting around the fact that they are the physical embodiment of what AI does. The more computational power a model needs, the more square footage needs to be built.<\/p>\n

What makes me most uneasy isn\u2019t the size of the buildings or the energy usage. It\u2019s not knowing whether we\u2019re looking at disruptive technology that will ultimately help all of society, or a disruption that exists mainly to make the richest people on the planet even more money? I wrestle with that question because our history is peppered with examples of the latter.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s first trillionaire, for example, became a household name in part because the demand for electric cars skyrocketed a short time after electric cars all but left the market. Confused? Yeah, me too. General Motors spent years developing its EV1, then abruptly discontinued the model, citing production costs. Was it really that or the oil industry, through lobbyist and campaign donations, undermining the car\u2019s success to protect its own interest? Or was it us, the public, who did not want to change? Who knows for sure?<\/p>\n

One thing I do know is that Larry Burns, the former vice president for research and development for General Motors who killed the automaker\u2019s electric car, said if he could turn back time, they would not have stopped investing in the emerging technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of those 32 solar panels<\/a> President Carter had installed on the White House back in 1979. They did not make it past the next administration. Today, China owns more than 80% of the solar market<\/a> \u2014 from every stage of production. The United States didn\u2019t just sacrifice its chance to corner a future clean energy market back when we were its pioneers; we also gave up all the manufacturing and supply chain jobs that would have gone with that dominance.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t lose that race. We forfeited it.<\/p>\n

Go back further, to 1937 and the Marihuana Tax Act. It wasn\u2019t built on science. It was built on fear, newspaper sensationalism and \u2014 some historians argue \u2014 the interests of industries that didn\u2019t want hemp fiber competing with their own products. The science separated the THC from the fiber, but the story elected officials told the public didn\u2019t. Had hemp, the building material, and marijuana, the drug, not shared the same fate, perhaps it would be the U.S. and not Europe leading in industrial hemp production. Unfortunately, because of the stigma associated with the plant, industrial hemp production was illegal for 80 years until the 2018 Farm Bill.<\/p>\n

Today, while American hemp farmers fought decades of federal confusion just to get back into the field, Belgium\u2019s IsoHemp runs an automated factory producing millions of \u201chempcrete\u201d blocks a year, and Europe\u2019s industrial hemp construction market is projected to grow nearly sixfold by 2033.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many historical uses for the fiber, from rope to textiles, that it\u2019s really difficult to comprehend just how harmful prohibition was to the science of the industry,\u201d said Mattie Mead, who founded Hempitecture in 2013. Based in Idaho, Mead\u2019s company produces insulation and structural building material incorporating hemp fibers and a lime-based binder. Using hemp in building construction provides an alternative to fiberglass, helps reduce carbon, and naturally keeps buildings cooler in the summer and warmer in winter, reducing energy costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are a lot better now than when we first started, but there\u2019s still a lot of stigma and misinformation out there,\u201d Mead said. \u201cIt\u2019s like the public has to unlearn the myths and untruths first before they can see how the technology helps.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same can be said about data centers and A.I.<\/p>\n

So much about the technology has been draped in doomsday scenarios and Terminator movies. It\u2019s hard sometimes to separate the impossible from the improbable. Even more difficult if you can\u2019t tell if the technology is meant for the good of all or just aiming to be good for someone\u2019s bottom line. Maybe, unlike in the \u201cmarihuana\u201d prohibition era, the scary warnings are valid. But now just as then, we need to separate fact from myth before setting policy.<\/p>\n

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the race to build \u2014 or stop the construction of \u2014 data centers across the country, it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,46414,25,46415,2386,23314,46411,26308,46410,46413,4403,46412,46416,14332,160,18400,573],"class_list":["post-86921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-ai-contract","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-building-material","tag-datum-center","tag-disruptive-technology","tag-electric-car","tag-fact","tag-hemp-fiber","tag-mattie-mead","tag-million","tag-oil-industry","tag-production-cost","tag-public","tag-science","tag-today","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}