The middle distribution of Gen Z’s feelings about AI range from apprehension to downright hatred. Despite the fact that more than half of Gen Z living in the U.S. uses AI regularly, according to a recently released Gallup poll, less than a fifth feel hopeful about the technology. About a third says the technology makes them angry. And nearly half say it makes them afraid.
Gallup’s own senior education researcher, Zach Hrynowski, blamed the bad vibes at least partially on the dwindling job market. The oldest Zoomers, he told Axios, are the angriest, as they are “acutely aware” of the ability of a technology to transform cultural norms without a second thought, unlike a Gen Xer who is trained to see new technology as toys and are still “playing around with AI.”
Indeed, job prospects for the recently graduated Gen Z are abysmal; Bloomberg just reported that 43% of young graduates are “underemployed,” meaning taking on jobs that require less education than they have.
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This is not just a Gen Z problem, either. In the American heartland, data centers are being proposed at a pace that local communities never anticipated and for which they were never asked permission, and they’re increasingly pushing back.
The numbers are serious. According to a report from 10a Labs’ Data Center Watch, at least $18 billion worth of data center projects have been blocked and another $46 billion delayed over the past two years owing to local opposition. At least 142 activist groups across 24 states are now actively organizing to block data center construction and expansion. A Heatmap Pro review of public records found that 25 data center projects were canceled following local pushback in 2025 alone, four times as many as in 2024, with 21 of those cancellations occurring in the second half of the year as electricity costs grew.
The concerns driving this resistance are less about existential AI risk and more about typical kitchen-table complaints; communities consistently cite higher utility bills, water consumption, noise, impacts on property values, and green space destruction as their primary objections. Water use is mentioned as a top concern in more than 40% of contested projects, according to a Heatmap Pro review of public records.
AI data centers can get electricity. They just gotta pay.
You know, like other large industrial users of electricity.
Ya, but they said it shouldn’t be that way. That data centers should get special treatment. In theory, I see why they’d think that way. But in practice, it’s a terrible choice. I just gave comparable examples.
Why not? Their usage profile is different from homes and industrial areas. Seems like prudent planning.
Unless you’re saying I could fill my residential basement with racks and sell it as a data center because “they shouldn’t be treated different.”
Well, under those circumstances, they would be paying less if they bought power in bulk :/ But again, I explained why not. By that logic, phone companies can decide who owns a phone line, power companies decide who gets electricity, water companies decide who gets water, banks decide who gets money, etc.
Phone companies already decide who owns a phone line.
They’re utilities.
That’s how utilities work.