阅读今日头条新闻，请查看您的收件箱。此处。数据中心使得民主党和共和党在各地的中期选举计算变得复杂。但直至本周，这一议题对缅因州参议院选举的影响一直不大——该选举一直被移民、战争以及取暖油和住房等可负担性问题所主导。
Read the top story of the day in your inbox. here. Data centers have complicated the midterm calculus for Democratic and Republican campaigns everywhere. But until this week, the subject hadn’t had much of an impact on a tight Maine Senate contest dominated by immigration, war, and affordability issues like heating oil and housing. That changed this week.
情况在本周发生了变化。周四晚上，一名抗议者闯入了在班戈的赫松大学举行的参议员苏珊·柯林斯与前州参议院议长特罗伊·杰克逊之间的最终辩论。该抗议者为打断柯林斯道歉，随后开始对人工智能数据中心进行 Tirade（长篇大论），称其“正在毁掉我们的气候”和“毒害我们的水源”，随后被保安人员迅速带走。柯林斯试图开玩笑说“特罗伊的支持者之一”，但杰克逊并未觉得好笑。
On Thursday night, a protester jumped into the final debate between Sen. Susan Collins and former state Senate President Troy Jackson at Husson University in Bangor. The person apologized for interrupting Collins and launched into a tirade about AI centers “destroying our climate” and “poisoning our water” before being summarily hauled out by security officers. Collins tried a joke about “one of Troy’s supporters,” but Jackson was not amused. “Oh, shut up,” he said.
“哦，闭嘴，”他说。“我甚至都不认识这个孩子。”担心就业和环境影响的年轻人是数据中心最坚定的反对者之一。周四的辩论并未回到这一议题，但早在本周早些时候的一个论坛上，柯林斯和杰克逊曾小心翼翼地在这片数据中心雷区中前行。《前景》在您的收件箱 深入的、进步的报道，超越噪音的分析。
“I don’t even know the kid.”Fearing for jobs and environmental impacts, young people are some of the staunchest opponents of data centers. The Thursday debate did not return to the issue, but during a forum earlier in the week, Collins and Jackson had picked their way through the data center minefield cautiously. The Prospect in your inbox Analysis that goes beyond the noise with in-depth, progressive reporting. No paywall, no programmatic ads — just the reporting.
无付费墙，无程序化广告——只有报道。随时可取消订阅。提交您的电子邮件即表示您订阅了《每日前景》，这是我们的工作日早晨通讯。
Unsubscribe anytime. Submitting your email signs you up for The Daily Prospect, our weekday morning newsletter. The two candidates were aligned on what has become the center-lane positioning on the divisive infrastructure facilities.
两位候选人在这些具有争议性的基础设施设施上达成了共识——即所谓的“中心车道”立场。设立“护栏”已成为许多立法者的默认立场，这无疑比“监管”这个词更令人安心。柯林斯和杰克逊同意，这些设施不应影响用水量或迫使用电者为电力支付更高费用，并且地方协议是关键。
Establishing “guardrails” has become the default position for many lawmakers, which no doubt sounds more soothing than the R word—regulation. Collins and Jackson agreed that the facilities must not affect water usage or force ratepayers to pay more for electricity and that local agreements were key. But Congress has lagged far behind in regulating the tech giants since the dawn of the internet age.
但自互联网时代伊始，国会在监管科技巨头方面远远落后。柯林斯大肆宣传一项旨在规范建设以及水和能源影响的法案（实际上它几乎不会产生什么作用），但她对制止这些公司几乎没有什么可说的，而其中一些公司已经承认，是的，人工智能可能对人类构成危险。她的这种反应性思维方式说明了一个简单事实：美国在制定全面的人工智能监管方面一直失职。国会议员们正试图在回避许多关于潜在致命技术的更根本问题的同时，构建出某种类似框架的东西，而这种技术已经引发了恐惧和愤怒。
Collins trumpeted a bill designed to regulate construction and water and energy impacts (in reality, it wouldn’t have done much), but she had little to say about putting the brakes on those companies, some of which have admitted that, yes, AI could be dangerous for humanity. Hers is a reactive mindset illustrating the simple fact that the United States has been derelict in creating comprehensive regulations governing artificial intelligence. Members of Congress are attempting to back into something resembling a framework while skirting over numerous more fundamental issues about a potentially lethal technology that has generated fear and anger. There’s also this: According to a Forbes investigation, Collins is among the top five senators with between $300,000 and $500,000 in data center–adjacent investments.
还有这一点：根据《福布斯》的调查，柯林斯是拥有30万至50万美元数据中心相关投资的前五名参议员之一。这些数字是按家庭计算的，股份属于她的丈夫。
The figures were calculated by household; the shares belong to her husband. Jackson asserted that the AI race needs to slow down or stop.
杰克逊断言，人工智能竞赛需要放缓或停止。事实上，获得杰克逊背书的参议员伯尼·桑德斯（I-VT）也提出了全国性数据中心暂停令提案，以及对所谓“超级智能”的禁令；但这两项提案在议会中一直搁置。在缅因州，关于暂停令的问题让人想起今年早些时候即将卸任的州长珍妮特·米尔斯所犯的重大错误——她否决了一项立法暂停令，以保存杰镇建设数据中心的能力。她引发的舆论迫使米尔斯不久后退出参议院竞选，而该项目后来也宣告失败。
Indeed, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has endorsed Jackson, has introduced a national data center moratorium proposal as well as a ban on so-called “superintelligence”; both have languished in the chamber. In Maine, the question of moratoriums recalls the major error that outgoing Gov. Janet Mills made earlier this year when she vetoed a legislative moratorium to preserve the town of Jay’s ability to site a data center. The uproar she provoked forced Mills to drop out of the Senate race soon afterward, and the project later collapsed. A University of Massachusetts Lowell/Center for Public Opinion poll indicates that 72 percent of Mainers oppose siting data center projects.
马萨诸塞大学洛厄尔分校/公众意见中心的一项民意调查显示，72%的缅因州居民反对建设数据中心项目。随着缅因州居民进一步了解正在进行的研究——旨在探索在芬迪湾建设水下数据中心的可行性——这些担忧必将爆发。一家总部位于马萨诸塞州的开发商DeepGreen Western Passage SPV正在探索一个由潮汐流供电的15兆瓦数据中心。该公司已获得联邦能源监管委员会的初步许可。
Those fears are certain to explode as Mainers learn more about research in progress to explore the feasibility of underwater data centers in the Bay of Fundy. A Massachusetts-based developer, DeepGreen Western Passage SPV, is exploring a 15-megawatt data center powered by tidal currents. The firm has received an initial permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Bay of Fundy has some of the highest tides in the world.
芬迪湾拥有世界上最高的潮汐之一。正如开发商路易斯·沃尔森对《波士顿环球报》所说：“这些洋流‘免费、持续且完全可预测，不同于风能或太阳能’。而且海洋自然冷却设施，无需消耗一滴饮用水。”与缅因州的多个城市和城镇一样，靠近加拿大边境的东港已通过数据中心暂停建设的决议。缅因州和新不伦瑞克省的原住民反对该项目，东港健康海洋联盟——一个当地团体——同样持反对态度。
Those currents are “free, continuous, and completely predictable, unlike wind or solar,” Louis Wolfson, the developer, told The Boston Globe. “And the ocean naturally cools things without touching a single drop of drinking water.”Like a number of Maine cities and towns, Eastport, near the Canadian border, has passed a data center moratorium. Indigenous peoples in Maine and New Brunswick oppose the project, as does the Eastport Coalition for Healthy Oceans, a local group.
周二，柯林斯得出结论，她和杰克逊的观点其实相差不大，但他们的回答凸显出联邦、州和地方立法者在遏制加速发展的AI公司方面落后得很远——而这些公司正推动一项令美国选民深感忧虑的技术。
On Tuesday, Collins concluded that she and Jackson weren’t that far apart, but their answers showcased how far behind federal, state, and local lawmakers are on reining in the AI companies accelerating a technology that has American voters seriously alarmed.