"Justin Pearson, a Tennessee lawmaker, has become one of the loudest voices amid a growing national backlash against the pollution and politics of America's AI buildout."
"MEMPHIS, Tennessee — When Justin Pearson sits at his desk, he looks at a polluted orange sky. It’s the backdrop of a haunting painting that hangs opposite an American flag in his home office. In the foreground, a figure wears a gas mask while reading the Bible and sitting on a stack of books that include George Orwell’s 1984 and W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk.
The painting tells the unseen story of this South Memphis neighborhood, with its windy roads dotted by modest, mostly one-story homes: Westwood is sandwiched between two of what have been Memphis’ biggest polluters, both of which are owned by the richest man in the world.
A 10-minute drive to the northwest is Elon Musk’s Colossus 1 data center. A 15 minute drive to the southeast is Colossus 2 and the army of 69 methane gas turbines located just over the state line in Mississippi that currently power the supercomputing hub — most without any of the pollution controls typically required by federal rules. Multiple environmental groups who are now suing xAI have estimated that the machines could emit more than 2,500 tons of smog-forming pollution annually into an area that already leads Tennessee in rates of emergency room visits for asthma.
Generative artificial intelligence wasn’t even widely publicly available back in 2021 when Pearson bought the painting. At the time, he was a community organizer hot off his first victory rallying locals against a crude oil pipeline that threatened to bisect Memphis’ underground drinking water source. The painting reminded him of what had been at stake in that fight, and how Black American history and the Good Book are balms for every struggle."
