AI’s reputational crisis is triggering a massive backlash against data centers including two attacks on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and another against an Indiana city council member.
I’ll get to the attacks on Altman but other than reminding readers that he is fondly referred to as “Scam” Altman by former colleague and current litigation opponent Elon Musk, I have other sub-topics to cover first.
Readers are encouraged to see this morning’s post about Maine’s potential data center moratorium.
Let’s start with the political context.
AI’s Reputational Crisis
Alex Heath’s piece for The Source, “The AI industry’s reputational crisis,” inspired my headline and also contains these two paragraphs:
The 2026 Stanford AI Index, published today, found that only 38% of Americans view AI positively, the lowest the report has ever recorded. (In China, that number is 84%.) Trust in the U.S. government to regulate AI sits at just 31%, dead last among all countries surveyed. I also noticed a recent Gallup poll showing that almost half of Gen Zers believe the risks of AI in the workforce outweigh its benefits.”
Today I spoke with Russell Wald, the Stanford HAI executive director who helps oversee the AI Index. “It’s really fascinating when you hear so many companies say this technology is so powerful and dangerous, but yet they’re building it at such breakneck speed,” he told me. “It’s these walking contradictions that they make themselves.”
Here’s a telling graph from the above-mentioned Stanford AI Index:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 14, 2026
Things are so bad that even notorious centrist “popularist” David Shor’s Blue Rose Research is warning that AI’s reputational crisis isn’t happening in a vaccum.
It’s A Rigged, Unaffordable System, Stupid
From Shor’s “AI Is Colliding With America’s Affordability Crisis (PDF)”:
AI is arriving into an economy Americans already think is rigged Voters aren’t experiencing the cost-of-living crisis and the rise of AI as separate issues; they see one unified threat where a system already rigged for the elite is using new technology to further stack the deck against them.
The capabilities of AI are advancing faster than our institutions can absorb, creating a massive vacuum of trust.
57% of Americans say that the world is moving too fast for them to keep up. Anxiety about AI has shifted from a personal concern to a societal crisis, with 79% of the public worried that the government lacks a plan to manage the displacement of entire industries in a tinderbox economy.
Voters see this as a massive disruption requiring solutions that match its scale – moving beyond temporary f ixes toward a permanent architecture for economic stability.
The public mandate is not for the government to run the industry or hand out checks, but for government to protect Americans and level the playing field – ensuring fairness in an economy that feels increasingly unaccountable.
The mandate from voters is clear: if someone is going to benefit from AI, it cannot be at the expense of the American people. Voters expect our policies to protect them from being taken advantage of in a world that already feels rigged and out of control.
Comes with charts!
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 15, 2026
Now let’s look at how dire AI’s reputational crisis was even before the threats to Sam Altman’s life.
And the Data Center You Rode In On
Tech Policy Press warned in March that “The Public is Getting Fed Up With Data Centers. Politicians Need to Take Notice“:
The country is in the midst of a massive data center boom, with data centers being built and announced at a record-breaking pace. In response, communities are fighting back, organizing coalitions and showing up en masse to public meetings where data centers are being discussed. The crowds at these events worry about the data center’s impacts on their community, and they resent how massive companies use their power and wealth to ride roughshod over the community’s wishes.
Public resistance to data centers isn’t a simple case of reactionary NIMBYism or anti-tech pearl-clutching. Instead, these are stories of communities resisting corporate impositions that will bring material harms, with few benefits in return.
Last year, I co-authored a report studying the impacts of data centers on their local communities. This research found three key issues with data centers.
First, as last week’s White House meeting acknowledged, data centers lead to higher electricity prices for nearby consumers.
…
Second, data centers impose significant costs on the local environment.
…
Perhaps these costs would be worth bearing if data centers brought jobs and benefitted local economies. But, my report’s third finding is that data centers don’t bring stable, high-paying jobs.
The public affairs firm Capstone (run by David Barrosse, a former advisor to Gen. Wesley Clark’s 2004 presidential campaign and to the megadonor- funded Democracy Alliance) did some handicapping in January about which projects were likely to run into the most effective public/local government opposition as AI’s reputational crisis builds:
Pushback proliferates faster in localities operating under Home Rule, in which local governments can legislate independently of the state. Data center moratoriums in Indiana and Georgia reflect a growing disconnect between Republican-majority local and state governments. On the other hand, counties operating under Dillon’s Rule (e.g., Virginia, Texas), which requires local governments to adhere to state law, are likely to follow the state government’s approach to data center development, providing regulatory clarity for investors.
Hyperscalers, including Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Web Services (AMZN), Alphabet Inc.’s Google (GOOG), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), and Meta Platforms Inc. (META), are more likely to encounter local-level pushback due to the size of their projects. However, these Big Tech companies have significant financial and political resources to circumvent project delays. Smaller companies specializing in co-location data centers, such as Equinix Inc. (EQIX) and Iron Mountain Inc. (IRM), are generally less vulnerable to local pushback.
When evaluating whether to invest in a given project, developers should consider the key potential drivers of local pushback: (1) economic development (e.g., job creation, property tax revenue, community benefit plans, land value); (2) noise and air pollution from electricity infrastructure; (3) water usage; and (4) preservation of rural or suburban character.
For obsessive nerds this Brookings research summary of America’s Rural Future virtual symposium held in January may be of interest to see what corporate America is being told about the ups and downs of data centers in rural America.
What we do know is the polling for data centers is collapsing, at least in Virginia, per The Washington Post:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 15, 2026
That shift suggests Virginians now consider data centers almost as undesirable as nuclear power plants, which a 2023 Post-University of Maryland poll found just 33 percent of voters nationwide would be very or somewhat comfortable seeing built in their community.
…
Similar disillusionment has taken hold across the country. Nationwide, 62 percent of Americans say the cost of data centers outweighs the benefits, according to a Marquette Law School poll conducted in January.Virginia voters have also soured on tax breaks for data centers that create at least 1,000 jobs. In the 2023 Post-Schar School poll, they were favored by 61 percent of voters, but the new poll found that 37 percent now support them.
…
The new poll results underscore the intensity of public frustration with Silicon Valley’s plan for a boom in construction in Virginia and nationwide. The tech industry’s insistence that it must rapidly construct power-hungry data centers to compete in artificial intelligence innovation has created a major political hazard for elected officials, especially at the local level where the projects receive approval.
There’s also a particular demographic that really hates this stuff, per HeatMap:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 15, 2026
And the resistance triggered by AI’s reputational crisis has notched some scalps, again per The WaPo:
“Opposition has been expanding along with the intensity,” said Miquel Vila of Data Center Watch, an AI security firm’s research project that tracks resistance to the facilities. During a three-month period in 2025, communities around the country blocked or delayed 20 projects, a number greater than the total opposition over the previous two years, according to the group.
And I have to give a big shout out to citizens of the charmingly named Festus, Missouri who threw out half of their city council after said council approved a $6 billion data center.
That’s an encouraging counter to the depressing reports of citizens arrested for speaking out against data center buildouts at local meetings from California to Oklahoma.
Nothing like a populist backlash to encourage CEOs to reach for the checkbook.
Leading the Future Comes at a Resistance Leader
Faced with a reputational crisis, the AI overlords naturally moneyed up and formed a super PAC, per Politico:
Pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future and its affiliated groups raised more than $140 million in contributions and commitments since launching in August of last year, Playbook’s Ali Bianco reports. The haul, shared first with Playbook, underscores the growing financial muscle of one of the most prominent super PAC networks aligned with the AI industry. It’s already begun to pour money into key races and currently has a whopping $100 million in cash on hand.
Voice of the Valley: The group boasts support from Silicon Valley heavyweights including OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, venture capitalist Ron Conway, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and AI company Perplexity. It’s already spent $1 million on an ad campaign blasting New York state Rep. Alex Bores in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District, and plans to expand its investments in the coming months.
Clanker wars: The huge cash sums confirm the nascent AI lobby as one of the biggest political influencers this cycle. But AI-skeptic groups insist politicians pushing for regulation shouldn’t be deterred. They note Bores — who spearheaded new state rules for the industry — received sizable counter-donations from AI safety advocates; and that AI skepticism remains a popular position with the wider public. It’s a struggle we’ll see play out on a larger scale in the months ahead.
I previously covered Leading the Future and their attacks on NY State Rep. Alex Bores in March.
Wired has a new interview with Bores, the politician targeted by Leading the Future’s whose primary will be held in June.
Electeds Don’t Get Tech
New York State Assemblyman Bores told Wired about his journey from happy Palantir employee during the Obama administration to quitting when they began working with Trump’s ICE. He also talked about the dire paucity of elected officials who understand tech and his 2022 campaign slogan that “one person in Albany should know how tech works”:
Wired: But why don’t more lawmakers understand technology? Why don’t they understand the companies who are creating and commercializing these tools, these platforms?
Alex Bores: …we have a Congress that is dominated by lawyers, and I love my friends who are lawyers, but you want to have a diversity of backgrounds in office, and maybe the skill set of software engineers and the skill set of Congress has less overlap than the skill set of lawyers and Congress. You need people that play in a few different arenas, but it’s also something that’s new and moving fast.
While I was working, I got a master’s in computer science with a specialization in machine learning. So when I was elected in 2022, I became the first Democrat elected in New York at any level with a degree in computer science.
I will be only the second Democrat in Congress with a degree in computer science. There are two Republicans who are there, but out of 435 members
The profound ignorance of tech on the part of most American lawmakers is no joke. In a prior life, I was once responsible for updating a future Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee on tech issues and it was like showing an alarm clock to a chicken.
That same senator went on to be a huge RussiaGater and played a central role in Twitter and other social media titans upping their censorship game at the behest of US politicians.
Talk about AI’s reputational crisis!
Alright, let’s get to the Kino.
Shots Fired, Molotov Cocktails Served
The trouble started, as it so often does, in Indiana, per Fortune:
Ron Gibson, a city-county councilmember, woke up just before 1AM on Monday to find 13 bullet holes in his home, along with a note on his doorstep that read “No Data Centers.” He and his 8-year-old son were home at the time, according to a statement released by the councilmember on Monday, though neither reported injuries.
…
The shooting appears to have been politically motivated, tied to a proposed data center in Indianapolis’s Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood. Less than a week prior to the incident, Gibson had voiced his support for the construction of a data center in his district. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Development Commission approved a rezoning petition on April 1 in a 6-2 vote for a 14-acre $500 million data center project for Metrobloks, an LA-based data center developer, as reported by Mirror Indy. Gibson isn’t on the commission that voted to approve the rezoning measure, but he supported the commission’s decision in a statement last week as the data center construction site falls in his district.
And then they came for Sam Altman.
Incendiary Press Coverage, Incendiary Attacks?
Sources, cited above, has a good summary of WTF happened:
On Friday, a 20-year-old man named Daniel Moreno-Gama threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman‘s San Francisco home, setting fire to an exterior gate. Less than two hours later, according to the federal criminal complaint filed today, he showed up at OpenAI’s headquarters on Third Street, smashed the glass doors with a chair, and told security he came to “burn it down and kill anyone inside.”
Officers recovered incendiary devices, kerosene, and a lighter from his backpack, along with a three-part document. The first section, titled “Your Last Warning,” listed the names and home addresses of AI executives and investors. The second discussed what Moreno-Gama called “our impending extinction” at the hands of AI. The third was a letter addressed directly to Altman: “If by some miracle you live, then I would take this as a sign from the divine to redeem yourself.”
Then, early Sunday morning, two people in a Honda sedan allegedly fired a round at Altman’s property. Amanda Tom, 25, and Muhamad Tarik Hussein, 23, were arrested and charged with negligent discharge of a firearm. Police haven’t said whether the shooting was connected to the earlier attack.
And the public response?
Holy Luigi, Scam Man!
As chronicled by Brian Merchant, the public response on social media certainly reflected AI’s reputational crisis:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 15, 2026
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 15, 2026
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 15, 2026
i didn’t realize how bad it was until i saw this comment section on instagram https://t.co/xxlHiM7r4P pic.twitter.com/j1qMwqWVrl
— “paula” (@paularambles) April 12, 2026
One Sam Stands Against Vox Populi and in the Darkness Bind Them
Presumably ignoring the online response to the attack, Altman took to his blog to respond, where he posted a pic of his husband and child “in the hopes that it might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house, no matter what they think about me.”
Altman also said some other stuff in response to the attacks and AI’s reputational crisis, including passive-aggressively blaming Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker profile for the attack:
Words have power too. There was an incendiary article about me a few days ago. Someone said to me yesterday they thought it was coming at a time of great anxiety about AI and that it made things more dangerous for me. I brushed it aside.
Now I am awake in the middle of the night and pissed, and thinking that I have underestimated the power of words and narratives.
He lathered on more family blog blather in a section called “what I believe”, try not to gag:
Working towards prosperity for everyone, empowering all people, and advancing science and technology are moral obligations for me.
AI will be the most powerful tool for expanding human capability and potential that anyone has ever seen. Demand for this tool will be essentially uncapped, and people will do incredible things with it. The world deserves huge amounts of AI and we must figure out how to make it happen.
It will not all go well. The fear and anxiety about AI is justified; we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever. We have to get safety right, which is not just about aligning a model—we urgently need a society-wide response to be resilient to new threats. This includes things like new policy to help navigate through a difficult economic transition in order to get to a much better future.
AI has to be democratized; power cannot be too concentrated. Control of the future belongs to all people and their institutions. AI needs to empower people individually, and we need to make decisions about our future and the new rules collectively. I do not think it is right that a few AI labs would make the most consequential decisions about the shape of our future.
Adaptability is critical. We are all learning about something new very quickly; some of our beliefs will be right and some will be wrong, and sometimes we will need to change our mind quickly as the technology develops and society evolves. No one understands the impacts of superintelligence yet, but they will be immense.
He typed a bunch more stupid crap (all of which contributes to AI’s reputational crisis IMO), but I’ll let this one howler suffice for our purposes:
My personal takeaway from the last several years, and take on why there has been so much Shakespearean drama between the companies in our field, comes down to this: “Once you see AGI you can’t unsee it.” It has a real “ring of power” dynamic to it, and makes people do crazy things. I don’t mean that AGI is the ring itself, but instead the totalizing philosophy of “being the one to control AGI”.
The only solution I can come up with is to orient towards sharing the technology with people broadly, and for no one to have the ring. The two obvious ways to do this are individual empowerment and making sure democratic system stays in control.
Anyone who’s been following Altman’s family blog antics for the last decade will be pulling their hair out right about now and screaming about AI’s reputational crisis.
“Once you’ve seen AGI” — give me a family blogging break! Sam Altman has no more seen AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) than you or I have, dear reader.
And as Gary Marcus and many others have pointed out, the brute force approach to scaling Large Language Models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT will never ever ever lead to AGI. Not possible. Not happening.
But Altman wasn’t the only commenter to react to the violent turn caused by AI’s reputational crisis.
Democracy Works for You, Oligarch
Dave Karpf has a warning for Sam and his ilk:
Altman responded to the molotov cocktail incident with a heartfelt plea to turn the temperature down. He blamed last week’s Ronan Farrow/Andrew Marantz article, “Sam Altman May Control Our Future — Can He Be Trusted.” This is a textbook strategic communication play: the molotov cocktail-thrower discredits the entire movement he is associated with, so Altman is associating him with absolutely everyone who voices concerns.
…
The options for the AI industry are (a) legitimate backlash or (b) illegitimate backlash. The mass public turns to violence when the avenues for legitimate, orderly contention are unavailable or non-functional. The Luddites smashed machines because it was illegal to forming unions.I suspect the next few years will see an awful lot of anti-data center activism. People are going to raise their voices and say “we don’t want these data centers raising energy prices here. No more giveaways to Musk/Altman/Zuckerberg.” OpenAI’s lobbyists and comms consultants will surely brand it the “new NIMBYism,” and “AI populism.” They’ll treat participatory democracy as a form of damage and try to rout around it. I expect they’ll be quite cutthroat in their maneuvers.
That’s a mistake though. The friction of participatory democracy creates a pathway for legitimate resistance. If you do away with that friction, the illegitimate alternative you’re left with is firebombs. As I’ve written elsewhere, Democracy is an incredibly good deal for elites, one that they ought to stop taking for granted.
There is a broad sense right now that tech billionaires run the world, entirely unconstrained by the public. This, to a great degree, is because they do. They bought the government, shredded the regulatory constraints, and treated neo-feudalist edgelords as political sages. It was a short-sighted maneuver, destined to fail. Silicon Valley ought to be more appreciative of the social stability provided by democracy. The alternatives are so much worse.
I’ll let Brian Merchant from Blood In The Machine have the last word:
Altman was no doubt shaken up by the attack, but the blog post is nonetheless remarkably free of serious self-reflection. If anything, it evinces a lack of understanding of the causes of the violence aimed at him was part of, and ultimately, even bolsters Farrow’s thesis: that Altman will say and do anything to advance his interests, including in times of crisis. It also reflects much of the AI industry leadership’s glaring disconnect over the anti-AI rage, its causes, and how it might meaningfully be abated.
After all, many AI executives have publicly declared for years that the technology they’re building and selling is so powerful that it might literally end humanity
In this way, for the last three years, the AI industry has asked the public to treat it as if it were Trump—seriously, but not literally. This is impossible. Startups like OpenAI and Anthropic are among the largest in history precisely because investors, and markets, took them both seriously and literally. Those investors expect to see the superintelligence and especially the mass automation they were promised.
If you take at face value what the AI executives themselves have been saying for the last decade, that an AI powerful enough to make humans go extinct is nascent, then acting with force to stop it would be a rational action. The AI industry and its executives—including Sam Altman—need to own this outcome, not blame it on Yudkowsky, safety researchers, or worried activists who take what they say literally.
I know I promised to let Merchant have the last word, but I can’t resist the temptation to point readers at this post by former professional Magic: The Gathering player turned “rationalist” AI-fear monger Zvi Mowshowitz called “Political Violence Is Never Acceptable” and which is just as naive as the title sounds, but might be worth a look for readers who are curious about the “rationalist” perspective on AI. TL;DR, Zvi is a doomer who buys all of Altman’s AGI and ASI hype.
As for his argument regarding political violence, I’d point him toward John Locke, Nelson Mandela, Franz Fanon, or Walter Benjamin, but what’s the point, none of them printed their arguments on Magic: The Gathering cards.
Hang tough, it’s only going to get more cray cray from here.
Related Posts on OpenAI:
