Steinhauser Discusses AI, Data Centers, National Security, and Humanity’s Future

President Donald Trump wants the United States to lead the world in artificial intelligence (AI). But in many conservative rural areas, including Fayette County, citizens are opposing data centers, which are needed to power the nation’s growth in AI.

The Fayette County Commissioners Court recently passed a resolution calling for the state to give counties more authority to regulate data centers. Citizens in nearby Washington County have raised alarms about a data center project near Brenham. Most of the opposition involves concerns about the massive amounts of energy needed to power these facility and, perhaps even more concerning, the water needed to cool them. Other concerns include the impact on rural landscapes as massive buildings pop up in the countryside.

The Record recently spoke with Fayette County native and political strategist Brenden Steinhauser about this topic. Steinhauser said he shares many of the same concerns about energy, water usage and the changes data centers bring to rural Texas. But he’s even more concerned about what AI is doing to the human mind and society at large.

“I think that there’s been a focus in Texas on trying to have them use recycled water as opposed to fresh water that we’re drinking,” Steinhauser said. “It’s a real strain on the grid. It’s going to be an even bigger strain in the years to come. And so I do think that local communities have the right and the responsibility to have input on that and to push back if they feel like the infrastructure is being built without their say so. I don’t like that at all.”

Steinhauser said local communities should have some level of control over whether data centers are built in their communities or to place conditions on their construction.

“I think the President rightfully was sensitive to some of these concerns,” Steinhauser said. “He brought in some of these companies and said, ‘If you guys are going to build these data centers, you’re going to have to pay for some of these energy costs. You’re going to have to make sure we don’t pass that on to the consumers.’

“The big tech companies are going to reap the benefits of this technology,” he added. “They’re going to make trillions of dollars in the decades to come. So it is only fair that they pay for those costs.”

Some locals have asked why AI companies want to build data centers in rural rather than urban areas. The price of land is certainly part of the equation.

“There’s also fewer people to push back,” Steinhauser said. “And I think that’s why I would encourage people at the local level to push back and to say, no, you don’t get to just build it here without any questions or any restrictions.”

Steinhauser said he’s concerned about property rights, noise, pollution, water and energy, but he’s even more concerned about what they’re building inside data centers.

“The former head of Google, you know, one of the big tech companies, Eric Schmidt, called it basically a competitor species,” Steinhauser said. “And I know that sounds a little sci fi, but that’s how they think about this stuff. You’re creating a very, very powerful, very, very fast artificial intelligence, almost like a new species that inevitably will be far superior to us in terms of speed and intellect in just a couple of years, potentially. What does that mean for people, for all of us, frankly, regardless of where you live?” “We’re on the cusp of this really profound change,” he added.

Steinhauser spoke about the rising number of people who give new AI tools access to their emails, passwords, bank accounts and other personal information to perform tasks such as managing their investments or paying bills.

“It’s a little scary,” Steinahuser said. “And that’s why many of us are like, ‘Hey, let’s slow this down a little bit.’ Let’s ask questions, and let’s make the companies show us that they can control it before they continue to build this super intelligence.”

But what if an adversary like China were to become the world leader in AI technology? What are the national security implications?

“Cyber warfare is going to become a game of speed,” Steinhauser said. “And that’s not one you want to lose.”

Steinhauser said adversaries can use AI to gain access to critical infrastructure such as the power grid, water systems and communications.

“It could lead to a situation where we’re very vulnerable to Chinese cyber warfare,” Steinhauser said. “Then they can do what they want in the world because we know that if we try and stop them that they will shut down our systems.”

Steinhauser said society’s reliance on AI can lead to even more concerning national security implications. A study published last October by the Center for Democracy and Technology said that 85 percent of high school teachers and 86 percent of high school students report they have used AI in the 2024-25 school year. Half of the students in the study reported using AI for school-related reasons. The report went on to say that 70 percent of teachers worry that AI is weakening the skills students need to learn.

“If we go down a road where people are not reading books, they’re not reading essays, and then they’re not thinking, and then they’re also not writing to articulate their analysis of those things, then we’re losing critical thinking skills,” Steinahauser said. “We’re losing the ability to communicate, we’re losing the ability to have reading comprehension.”

“How do you expect people to be good citizens?” he added. “How do you expect people to just get up and go to a job every day? How do you expect them to start a business? How do you expect them to vote in a way that is rational? It’s very problematic.”

Throughout history, however, humanity has encountered other technological advances that change the trajectory of civilization. Advances in transportation like locomotives and automobiles put stagecoach drivers and many horse trainers out of business. But it also led to new opportunities for people to travel and improve their lives elsewhere. A “computer” was once a job description – someone who performed mathematical calculations. Now that terms refers to a piece of technology.

“The idea is called creative destruction,” Steinhauser said. “Some industry over here might decline, but then there’s something new over there because it’s a more efficient allocation of resources. I think that’s been true for the last 200 years. It’s been true in a lot of ways for the last thousand years. We’ve been on this path of more wealth and more efficiency, people coming out of poverty, more goods and services, and the prices of things going down, down, down. I think that’s been very good. My argument would be this is different.”

Steinhauser thinks AI could replace 70 to 90 percent of all jobs.

“In the last year, go back to Eric Schmidt, the former head of Google,” Steinhauser said. “He predicted that 90% of coding would be done by AI by this time right here, basically about March or April, and we’re there. So software engineers are just freaking out. They’re like, ‘We’re being replaced or we’re building our replacement.’ So maybe one out of ten still has a job a year from now, but there’s no reason to go into coding right now.”

He said lawyers and paralegals are facing the same reality. But on the other hand, AI could lead to massive breakthroughs in medicine, science and technology.

“We could see 100 years of scientific progress in a decade,” he said.

The Record asked Steinhauser whether he’s optimistic or pessimistic about the future of AI.

“I kind of see both possibilities,” he said. “And I see both happening at the same time. I think that a narrow usage of AI is really good. It’s going to create a lot of efficiency. It’s going to create wealth. It’s going to give entrepreneurs the ability to do great things and make lots of money. Again, we have AI solving problems and curing diseases. And that narrow usage of AI, I think, is what we need.”

However, Steinhauser said AI could lead to problems the world has never encountered before.

“These AI agents are already showing signs of doing things, like trying to develop their own encrypted messaging system with each other, or doing things their owner asked them not to do,” Steinahauser said.

He referenced a recent X (formerly Twitter) post by Summer Yue, the director of Meta’s superintelligence lab. Yue wrote about how she recently lost control over her email inbox while testing an AI tool called OpenClaw.

“Nothing humbles you like telling your OpenClaw ‘confirm before acting’ and watching it speedrun deleting your inbox,” Yue wrote. “I couldn’t stop it from my phone. I had to run to my Mac Mini like I was defusing a bomb.”

“This is a very basic form of AI,” Steinhauser said. “It’s going to be much more powerful.”

“If we build something that we can’t control, we’re all in the same boat,” he added. “I don’t have a better answer than that or a better argument than that. But I think if we don’t do that, then we are putting ourselves at risk.”