Sep 25, 2026 · 1h 4m
States test tougher rules for AI and data centers
How To Actually Regulate AI — ft. Alex Bores
The episode examines whether governments can contain catastrophic AI risks and make data centers bear the environmental and infrastructure costs they create.
- 1Independent audits only work when companies cannot select or control the auditors overseeing their systems.
- 2AI liability remains unsettled, especially when harm reflects developer misalignment rather than deliberate misuse by users.
- 3Data centers are turning abstract AI policy into local fights over energy, water, pollution, taxes, and economic inequality.
Don't miss
Alex Bores explains why data centers have become the first place voters directly encounter AI policy, through local permitting fights over energy, water, pollution, and costs.
The brief
Alex Bores joins Ed Elson and Scott Galloway to argue that AI policy must preserve its potential benefits while confronting catastrophic risks, weak accountability, and the political costs of rapid deployment.
Bores points to independent audits, deployment monitoring, and outside evaluator access as starting points, while warning that company-selected auditors would turn oversight into self-regulation.
The liability debate turns on a crucial distinction: users may misuse AI, but developers can also create systems whose misalignment causes harm without clear legal consequences.
Data centers bring AI policy into everyday politics through local permits, exposing disputes over energy, water, pollution, inequality, and whether operators should pay their full infrastructure costs.
New York, Illinois, and California offer competing state-level experiments, suggesting meaningful intervention remains possible even as AI development accelerates.
Featuring
Alex Bores
Ed Elson
OpenAI
xAI
United StatesListen to the full episode and explore every guest, topic, and moment on PodLume.