A spirited panel debates whether AI companies should surrender part of their ownership to a public wealth fund. The conversation examines distrust of AI, job displacement, data-center energy and water use, income versus wealth taxation, billionaire resentment, corporate political influence, and the dangers of government owning stakes in companies it also regulates.

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The MacVoices Live! panel examines Spotify adopting Apple-backed video podcast technology, Instagram’s disappearing posts and why anyone would want them, and  Microsoft expanding Copilot everywhere, whether it is a good idea or not. Chuck Joiner, David Ginsburg, Jeff Gamet, Guy Serle, Web Bixby, Eric Bolden, Marty Jencius, and Jim Rea also look at the risks of putting AI mini data centers in homes, and Plex’s major lifetime Pass price hike.

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Critics decry proposed hyperscale projects, fearing overuse of water and electricity, and ‘appropriating rural, Black-owned land for industrial purposes’

There seems to be a fight over datacenters in nearly every city in the US right now. And amid the extreme polarization of today’s politics, the opposition tends to be bipartisan.

“I would say it’s kind of the far left and the far right ran into each other and had a hug,” said Frank Scott Jr, mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas. “But they come at it from different perspectives.”

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© Photograph: Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

AI-friendly president shared a post saying governor Kathy Hochul should scrap the one-year policy ‘IMMEDIATELY’

Donald Trump railed against the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, for pausing the construction of large new datacenters, the resource-intensive facilities that power artificial intelligence.

New York became the first US state to enact a moratorium on new datacenters on Tuesday, when Hochul signed an executive order mandating a one-year statewide pause on so-called “hyperscale” datacenters.

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© Photograph: Matt Roberts/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Matt Roberts/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Matt Roberts/Shutterstock

Governor Kathy Hochul issues executive order enacting a moratorium on the large, resource-intensive AI facilities

New York became the first US state to enact a moratorium on new datacenters on Tuesday.

Governor Kathy Hochul issued an executive order mandating a one-year statewide pause on the large facilities used to power artificial intelligence products, which she signed at a mid-morning press conference.

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© Photograph: Albany Times Union/Hearst Newspapers/Getty Images

© Photograph: Albany Times Union/Hearst Newspapers/Getty Images

© Photograph: Albany Times Union/Hearst Newspapers/Getty Images

Microsoft, Amazon and Google say they still aim to achieve net zero output despite construction boom

Microsoft, Amazon and Google’s collective carbon emissions have increased by nearly a fifth in the past year, driven largely by datacentre construction.

In the financial year ending March 2026, the three tech companies emitted 119m mTCO₂e (metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent), or about a third of those of France.

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© Photograph: Audrey Richardson/Reuters

© Photograph: Audrey Richardson/Reuters

© Photograph: Audrey Richardson/Reuters

Large-scale datacentre projects around the world are being challenged or cancelled, as infrastructure’s energy demands ramp up

Datacentre planning proposals face all kinds of hurdles, from securing energy supply to high construction costs. But the 2,000 acre Prince William Digital Gateway site in the US state of Virginia had another problem: its proximity to a Civil War battlefield.

“If the development is allowed to proceed, the solemn nature of this historic site would become marred by sitting in the shadow of the monstrous datacentres, along with their associated electrical infrastructure,” said one legal brief against the plans.

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© Photograph: Horst Friedrichs/Alamy

© Photograph: Horst Friedrichs/Alamy

© Photograph: Horst Friedrichs/Alamy

Does a thought-experiment about US ascendancy in the technology say as much about AI jitters as it does about the reality?

It’s 2031 and the US and China are about to tear Europe into pieces.

The US ploughed vast sums into datacentres and the EU did not. China built robots and Europe did not. American companies “restructured” their workflows around AI and fired people, while EU workers went on long lunch breaks and handed over administrative tasks to the AI model Claude.

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© Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

© Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

© Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

The emergence of a Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) may be soon claimed to have occurred and even demonstrated by one of these AI superclusters. It may be heralded as the arrival of a super intelligence, more intelligent than all mankind who deserves to be worshipped as a god, a god of human creation.

The ongoing competition to create artificial intelligence involves massive investments by major companies in developing supercomputers with extensive GPU capacities. However, true sentient intelligence cannot emerge merely from advanced technology, as intelligence is the product of divine creation, not a result of computational complexity alone.