Washington, D.C. – Today OpenAI released a policy report it said is meant to “keep people first” by addressing what it admits are major societal challenges that will inevitably arise from the explosive growth of the increasingly controversial AI industry. 

In response, Food & Water Watch’s Managing Director of Policy and Litigation Mitch Jones issued the following statement:

“These sorts of vague and unenforceable policy recommendations from massive, profit-hungry corporate players like OpenAI should be taken as nothing more than insincere platitudes from a Big Tech industry that is driving completely out of control towards a precipice of energy, environmental and societal crises of its own making. 

“The sudden explosive growth of the AI industry – in particular the massive hyperscale data centers wreaking havoc on communities and utility grids across the country – must be reigned in immediately. The only way to effectively achieve this is to place a full halt on the construction of new AI data centers nationwide, until comprehensive rules are enacted by local, state and federal authorities to manage this aggressive industry in a just and sustainable way.”

Last month Food & Water Watch released a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind report that makes a compelling, urgent case for a nationwide moratorium on the construction of new AI-driven data centers. The deeply researched report lays out the wide range of harms and hazards associated with the sudden explosion of the data center industry in America, including:

• Enormous and unsustainable consumption of power and water resources, already resulting in skyrocketing utility bills for families and small businesses.
• Dangerous new demand for fossil fuels, posing heightened risks of air and water pollution for impacted communities and a grave threat to our global climate.
• A host of other societal threats, from national economic catastrophe, to loss of critical farmland, to unrelenting noise pollution, to threats to children and democracy.

Later in March, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, legislation that would impose a moratorium on the construction of all new AI data centers until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers and communities, defend privacy and civil rights and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment.

Last October, Food & Water Watch became the first national organization in the country to call for a full nationwide moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers. In a letter to Congress in December, more than 230 national, state and local organizations from across the country echoed this call. Meanwhile, Food & Water Watch has been active in fighting numerous proposals in many states, including California, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.