Do Americans Prefer a Nuclear Plant to a Data Center?

Nathan Benaich says Americans would much prefer living near a nuclear power plant than a data center. A survey found the preference, and he calls the finding quite wild.

Nathan Benaich frames the objection as not-in-my-backyard opposition: not wanting a data center next to the garden. The objection is a real problem, hampering the buildout of data centers and also influencing part of the midterms, which arrive in the next couple of weeks.

Alex Volkov says the show covered the survey and still cannot believe it, amid people on the street talking about AI boiling the planet. Nathan Benaich says the pattern is certainly happening in Europe and in Korea and other places too, where a small proportion of the population has benefited enormously from AI and many people have not, and there are social issues with the split.