While AI has the promise to make major advancements in science and medicine, it also brings damaging consequences. The data centers powering AI are a major draw on the electrical grid and can be a burden on municipal water systems. AI has dangerous implications for privacy and human rights with its surveillance and military applications.  

Cities in Kansas have installed AI cameras that track the movement of personal vehicles with license plate readers, creating a database easily accessible by law enforcement.  This has the same effect as putting a tracking device on every person’s car with no warrant needed to track every move.  

This breach of our privacy has been abused in at least one case when Lee Nygaard, the former Sedgwick Police Chief, used a Flock database to track the movements of his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend. While he resigned after being caught, and his certification was removed, there are no guard-rails in place to prevent these abuses from happening again.

I’m calling for legislation to:

• Require all new data centers to include solar and wind generation, and battery storage, with the capacity to offset the energy demands they will put on the local power grid.

• Require all new data centers to conduct a study of the local watershed carrying capacity and municipal water capabilities to keep the scale of the project within the local infrastructure’s means.

• Require all law enforcement access of AI databases to require a judicial warrant.