Trump goes quiet on AI in State of the Union address
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President Trump on Tuesday gave the longest State of the Union address ever, clocking in at 108 minutes. But he gave short shrift to artificial intelligence, mentioning it just twice.
Why it matters: AI is increasingly likely to upend how every American lives and works (or doesn't work), yet Washington, D.C. is mostly ignoring the long-term implications.
What he said: Trump's first AI comment was in brief reference to his wife's efforts on an AI-related education initiative.
- The second was more substantive, announcing a plan to make Big Tech build or buy its own electricity supplies for data centers.
- In all, around 200 words of a 10,600-word speech.
Zoom in: The data center electricity comments were instructive, in that they focused exclusively on a present-day concern.
- To be sure, it's a valid worry. Electricity prices rose nearly 7% between 2024 and 2025, more than doubling the overall inflation rate. Many view data centers as a contributing culprit, feeding AI's insatiable power demands.
- But it's a bit like focusing all climate change mitigation strategies on a single storm that's already formed.
The big picture: Even AI optimists who view p(doom) as a myth will acknowledge that enormous changes are coming — and coming quicker than most people realize. The sorts that may color almost every other thing that Trump discussed on Tuesday night.
- But so long as we win the "race with China" and keep electricity bills low, there's apparently nothing more to talk about. Leave that to universal basic income chats on Reddit.
- Then there are those of us who are more concerned. For example, I have a high school freshman with good grades and a strong motivation to succeed. But I struggle to think of a single career that will still exist for her when she's my age. White collar or blue collar. All I can come up with is professional athlete or another sort of live entertainer, but I don't think that's in the cards.
- Some suggest that this will be another industrial revolution where old jobs are supplanted by new ones. But that's just comforting conjecture.
The bottom line: We can prepare without panic. Instead we're punting.
