AI Advancing Quickly as Data Centers See Public Opposition
AI is quickly evolving from something that was entertaining to something employed by businesses for real-world “tactical uses,” former White House official Asad Ramzanali said Wednesday. At the same time, the public doesn't like the data centers that AI is spawning, he said. Ramzanali, director of AI and technology policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, spoke during a Fiber Broadband Association webcast with Gary Bolton, the group's CEO.
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People are finding that AI can improve their productivity at work, said Ramzanali, who oversaw AI issues for the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Biden administration. “Companies are realizing what it means for them, good and bad.” Research shows that all the AI pilots that companies are launching aren’t panning out, he said. Technology will continue to advance, and companies will continue to look at where AI “makes sense” and where it doesn’t.
The speed at which AI is moving “feels jarring,” but that’s true for any new technology, Ramzanali added. People are seeing the benefits and where “regulation is needed,” but “at the end of the day, we know how to deal with new technologies.”
Bolton said he has lived through some “seismic changes,” like the launch of the internet and the first smartphones. Now, he's waking up in the middle of the night “thinking about how AI is going to disrupt the iPhone.”
Ramzanali said it’s “remarkable” how long smartphones have lasted in their current form. “Most form factors come and go. We advance in how we use the technology.” He predicted that people will stop using the term "AI" so much, since it will be “integrated into a lot of the things we’re using.” AI offers potential for things like forecasting where a storm will hit on “a block-by-block basis, more than a few days out,” Ramzanali said. “That can save lives.”
One dynamic to watch is that companies like Google and the partnership between OpenAI, Microsoft and Nvidia are starting to own the entire AI “stack,” Ramzanali said. Many hyperscalers use private networks and own their fiber, "everything from backbone and core to subsea cables."
Proposed AI data centers are also starting to see negative public reaction, with people beginning to “literally picket,” which is a dynamic that hasn't been seen for most tech issues, Ramzanali said. They don’t want data centers near where they live because the facilities are huge, ugly and "really loud," he said. Other public concerns include rising energy costs and complaints that data centers won’t lead to very many more local jobs, he added.