Posted inArtificial intelligence

Oregon data centers fight back with web site and TV ad

Maybe it's because my wife and I don't watch much regular TV, aside from sports and news, but last night was the first time I'd seen the Oregon Connects pro-data center 30 second ad on the KGW (Portland) 11 pm news. I say this because the Oregon Capital Chronicle had a story about Oregon Connects on July 28, 2026, which admittedly was just two months ago. Here's an excerpt from "Pro-data center industry group behind ad campaign in Oregon, six other states." Just days before the Oregon Legislature in March passed a one-year pause on a popular tax incentive program…
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Posted inArtificial intelligence Data centers

Kotek and Drazan now agree on one thing: a statewide data center moratorium

Political ambition creates strange bedfellows. Today the two main candidates for Oregon governor in November's election, Democrat incumbent Tina Kotek and Republican state senator Kristine Drazan, both expressed their support for a statewide moratorium on data centers -- even though they'd previously expressed reservations about this. Well, that's what happens when polling shows that most Oregonians are on board with a moratorium. A story in today's Oregonian by Mike Rogoway says: Gov. Tina Kotek and her Republican opponent, Sen. Christine Drazan, both called for statewide moratoriums on data centers Tuesday, converging on the same position within hours of each other…
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Posted inArtificial intelligence Data centers

If you care about the future of AI, watch this astonishing video of a Yuval Noah Harari interview

Today a friend emailed me a link to a You Tube video where Yuval Noah Harari talks about AI in an amazing fashion that only a historian with his breadth of knowledge about how the past of humanity intersects with the future of artificial intelligence could pull off. This graphic provides an overview. I watched the video earlier this evening, forsaking tonight's usual television diet of recorded Sunday political talk shows, because I'm a huge fan of Harari -- having read three of his books, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2015),…
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