AI: The impossible choice

21 Sep 2026, 08:54 by Anthony SAMRANI · L'Orient Today

So, what would you do?

Put yourself in the shoes of a Texas voter a little over a month before the midterm elections. Now imagine you’re faced with this choice: one candidate promises to build as many data centers as possible in a state whose GDP already rivals Italy’s, while the other vows to oppose that expansion and regulate its growth.

Texas already has more than 300 data centers and has become one of America’s premier AI gold rush destinations, with hundreds of new projects announced for the coming years. The more powerful we want AI to be, the more data centers we need to train the models and handle millions of queries. In other words, winning the AI race takes a whole lot of them.

But beyond being remarkably ugly, data centers consume enormous amounts of energy, and they have come to embody all the excesses of a no-holds-barred race that increasingly worries American voters, iTexans included. So much so that even Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who is running for reelection, has had to scale back his plans in the face of a popular backlash.

Let’s return, then, to the question we started with, since Texas is a textbook case that seems bound to become universal: what would you do ?

Caution, and perhaps even logic, should steer us toward the candidate calling for regulation. Not only do data centers carry an environmental cost, but they also make possible ever more powerful AI, which could end up turning against its creator. Why vote for the development of a technology whose own leading developers believe could, in certain scenarios, threaten the survival of humanity?

Simply because things are not that simple.

Should our ancestors have avoided learning to make fire at all costs because it could burn whoever tried, along with everything around them? If the apocalyptic predictions turn out to be wrong, can you, as a Texas voter, really afford to do without a technology that may become one of the world’s main sources of wealth and power? Wouldn’t that mean risking growing poorer and becoming vassals of those who master it?

After all, regulating when everyone else does is common sense. But regulating while others accelerate can amount to suicide.

One could counter that if humanity’s fate truly hangs in the balance, suicide awaits at the end of the road anyway, so we should start by setting an example, even if it means risking losing the race, whatever the cost. Unfortunately, past experience, from nuclear weapons to the environment, shows that we have never been able to operate that way.

So what should we do? Vote for the other candidate, the one who wants to win the race and dominate the world?

If AI truly is an existential threat, that means we will have helped destroy humanity at a crucial moment. But even if it isn’t, we will still share responsibility for everything that comes with its development: scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, productivity gains, but also mass surveillance, autonomous weapons, and, above all, the possible obsolescence of humankind.

We can always argue that we are more than an accumulation of knowledge, that we are physical and social beings, and that AI will free us to focus on what really matters and enjoy life while the machines run at full throttle. But that assumes that the wealth AI generates will actually be redistributed.

And what will we do when machines are faster, smarter, and more creative than we are in absolutely every field ? Is it sane to vote for the development of a technology that could make humankind completely useless

Then again, if others build it, we could end up just as useless and dependent on them to boot.

In truth, the AI debate is both an impossible one and the most fascinating of our time. This technology’s transformative power is so great that it will touch every aspect of our lives.And yet, apart from a handful of people who have worked in the field for years, we are all "Muggles" in the face of this shift.

The more I read, the more I listen, and the more questions I ask in an effort to understand, the more anxious I become. And the more I wonder how to fight this "AI anxiety," which may stem at least as much from my limited understanding of the subject as from the stakes involved.

Should we try to master every inner working of this technology so that we’re among the last to pay the price? Should we mobilize to raise awareness, at the risk of going down as history’s biggest fools? Or should we instead not worry about it all, and stay on the sidelines of what will likely be the defining issue of the century?

And collectively what stance should we take? Assuming the ideal scenario — an agreement between the U.S. and China to rein in AI’s advance — is off the table, what should we do? I don’t have the answers. As with the Texas example, I don’t see a good solution for now. I just believe we can no longer afford not to ask the question. But unlike the Texas voter, I don’t even have the luxury of choosing.

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