US Officials Cast AI Critics as "Foreign Agents"

Anxiety about artificial intelligence and the buildout of data centers is widespread in the United States. Yet, as journalist Ken Klippenstein reports, the Trump administration has convinced itself that this concern was manufactured in China.

From social posts to threats of jail

Last week the Justice Department warned "citizens and noncitizens" alike: anyone who, in "any public activity" — including even "public demonstrations" — furthers the "goals" of a foreign power must formally notify the government or face arrest and prosecution.

No specific protests are named in the document, but the target isn't hard to guess. Two days earlier, Trump launched a string of posts branding opponents of AI part of a "SICK conspiracy" that benefits only China, and calling the skeptics "Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause," "Traitors" and "Treasonists." In another message he promised to pursue "BAD" actors using "our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System."

A chorus of accusers

The China narrative was not the president's alone. Back in June, Senate Intelligence chairman Tom Cotton asked the DOJ to investigate "foreign influence" over America's AI infrastructure, pointing to Shanghai-based American tech mogul Neville Roy Singham. House Republicans sent nearly identical letters, and venture capitalist David Sacks, Trump's former AI czar, argued that domestic resistance to AI is a gift to Beijing.

The case of investor Kevin O'Leary, who is planning a $100 billion data center in Utah, is especially telling. He claimed hundreds of millions of dollars from China were paying protesters. One accused group shot back: "The only foreign interest in this data center is Kevin from Canada." In June, O'Leary conceded he had no evidence; Fox News aired apologies, and two of the groups have sued for defamation.

What the polling says

The whole edifice rests on the assumption that ordinary Americans wouldn't oppose data centers without a prompt from Beijing. The data suggests otherwise. A March Gallup poll found 71 percent of Americans oppose building an AI data center in their area — more than oppose a local nuclear plant. The opposition crosses party lines (63 percent of Republicans). And it isn't technophobia: nearly half already use chatbots. People distrust not the technology but how it is being rolled out — 63 percent say AI is advancing too quickly.

Klippenstein notes that the national-security gambit is likely to backfire. When people who distrust the government's handling of AI are told their distrust is treasonous foreign propaganda punishable by prison, they are unlikely to trust it more. More likely they will trust it less — and wonder what the government is so eager to keep them from asking.

Source: Hacker News