Breaking Points: AI Disaster Plans, Data Centers, and the Fight Over Regulation

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Power, politics, and artificial intelligence are colliding in a major way. On Breaking Points, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti sat down with Will Lawrence, who's running for Congress in Michigan's 7th District. The conversation quickly moved beyond campaign politics to something much bigger, a warning about where AI might be heading.

And it starts with a pretty alarming Axios report. Apparently, top executives at Anthropic, OpenAI, and other AI companies are privately gaming out what happens after a catastrophic AI event. Lawrence finds that deeply concerning.

Right. He says the public is being sold this promise of economic growth, but the reality is massive water and energy consumption, threats to home values, mass unemployment, and even the risk of dangerous accidents. For Lawrence, this isn't abstract. He spent the last year leading the fight in Michigan against data centers landing in people's backyards. That's interesting because voters keep asking him, for the sake of what? He argues that a data center bringing only a couple dozen permanent jobs isn't worth the risk of a runaway AI event. And this became a key debate point with his opponent, Tom Barrett.

Lawrence claims Barrett and House Republicans tried to block local and state regulation of AI and data centers for 10 years, though the Senate removed that provision. He also says Barrett's position keeps shifting, even on a bill presented as banning non-disclosure agreements that actually only applied to Congress members.

Building on that point, Lawrence says the real issue is local officials, because developers use money and pressure to shape the rules for communities can respond. He claims Barrett was backed by nearly a million dollars from data center developers and then supported massive tax breaks for them. On broader politics, Lawrence supports Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker and wants Democratic unity heading into January. But he sees room for limited bipartisanship on AI, since Republicans, independents and Democrats in his district are all pushing back. So what's his solution? He's proposing a stop tech overreach plan, pausing new data centers and advanced AI development, while negotiating an AI benefits compact to keep humanity and human values at the center. He also connects this to war spending, saying no to war and setting our national priorities straight has been central from the start. He argues the country has spent trillions over 25 years and is less safe for it. Lawrence describes politics as more top vs. bottom than left vs. right. Some Trump voters support him because he's fighting data centers, and because tariffs and war are making life more expensive. He says this race will be close, decided by a few hundred votes, and powered by volunteers and small donors, not corporate money.