With the midterm elections looming, questions around the rapid expansion of the artificial intelligence industry are on voters' minds. For a regional perspective, WAMC Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes joined Sam Dingman and Annie Bennett on Northeast Notebook.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: this conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Dingman: Let's start at the national level here. The stakes of this issue have risen in recent weeks after an anthropic researcher raised concerns about the threats of the technology. This prompted broad calls, including amongst industry leaders for greater oversight.
Landes: Yeah, and despite this tech becoming ubiquitous and attracting billions of dollars in investments, right now there is no overarching federal regulation of artificial intelligence, despite the gravity of these conversations about the existential threats it could pose to humanity. Now, out here in western Mass., the University of Amherst put out a national poll just this month to ask people in our great nation about how they feel the federal government is handling AI policy. I spoke with the professor of political science and co-director of the poll, Ray La Raja, about what they found.
La Raja: We found fewer than one-in-four saying President Trump is handling the issue of AI well, and that goes beyond just the data centers in terms of how it's regulated, how it's approached. People are not happy with that at all.
Landes: Essentially, La Raja said that this is a bipartisan issue. People are not happy with data centers, which polled even worse than federal AI policy, and that there seems like there's a lot of discontent right now about how the government is handling this.
Bennett: Let's take it back to the state level. Where do things stand in Massachusetts?
Landes: Just like the federal government, Massachusetts also does not have any AI regulations on the books. There is a law that criminalizes the use of AI for harassment in in the use of things like revenge porn, but there is not a broader policy that dictates how the tech is being used. I spoke with Democratic MA State Senator Paul Mark about a legislative effort to work on a more comprehensive bill regulating AI. Here's what he had to say.
Mark: We're working with the Mass AFL-CIO on something intended to try to help preserve jobs and and and allow this new technology. Which I mean, no matter what we do, it's not going to just disappear. It's not going to go away. But how do we make it work in harmony with people that are are employed right now? How do we make sure that as it increases productivity, that that productivity gains aren't just going to eight billionaires; that the productivity gains are actually being realized by the people doing the labor and by you know more local businesses, things like that?
Landes: Mark says he's gotten calls from constituents in western Mass about calls for a moratorium on data centers entirely, but he says that lawmakers are trying to walk a fine line between responding to those concerns about data centers and AI tech, but also considering the Massachusetts economy in whatever regulations emerge.
Mark: Massachusetts is a high-tech state. Massachusetts is a knowledge economy, certainly, with Harvard, Williams, MIT, UMass. We don't want to put out this red flag. Don't invest in Massachusetts. Don't research in Massachusetts. We don't want to do that. But at the same time, we don't want natural resources like water being polluted. We don't want trees being cut down to put a data center in one of these rural communities. I know people will not be happy with that, so I was working with Senator Mike Moore out of Worcester. He had an amendment that unfortunately ended up not going through on maybe a couple of year moratorium on some of these data centers, and I know that's going to be something that comes back up.
Dingman: Josh, you cover Berkshire County, how is the question of AI coming up regionally before the midterms?
Landes: Well, actually, organically, much at odds with AI. In a conversation with the new president of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Dr. Diana Rogers-Adkinson — we were talking about the struggles of public colleges in Massachusetts right now, and she pointed out that one of the issues they face is that this technology, AI, it's expanding so rapidly. There are billions of dollars pouring into it. Outside of concerns about how to prepare students for AI literacy as these changes happen, as well as how to ethically use it in concert with higher education. There's also this concern that small schools like MCLA are now going to be trying to put kids out into this larger workforce without many of the resources that larger colleges have to keep up with these advancements.
Rogers-Adkinson: It's really difficult for all of us to stay up in any, let alone all professions, and really know, alright: this is where this is going next, unless you're Carnegie Mellon — they're at the cutting edge of this. We need to be listening and following those people to see what they're talking about and how that what's coming next. But there's always going to be a step behind because the knowledge base in AI just keeps changing so rapidly, and it teaches itself how to find new information pretty quickly, which is a little scary at times.
Bennett: Josh, what's happening on the municipal level in the Berkshires when it comes to AI?
Landes: So, this statewide group, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, has put out some guidelines on how to responsibly use AI. We've seen some communities in the Commonwealth, like Salem, put out municipal AI regulations in North Adams, the second largest community in Berkshire in Berkshire County. The city council president Ashley Shade is working on a very comprehensive ordinance to regulate the use of AI. She told me she was inspired after being very concerned about how the Trump administration used AI through its short-lived Department of Government efficiency when it was making cuts to federal spending, and she told me major issues include civil rights and accountability.
Dingman: Well, Josh, this has been a really wonderful comparison of the way this is resonating locally versus the way it's resonating nationally, and we appreciate your reporting as always. That is WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes.
