On Wednesday night in Dallas, minutes before Donald Trump took the stage, Joe Allen spoke at a separate event warning a hard-right audience about immigration — and used data centers as a metaphor. Allen described them as "this incubator for algorithmic immigrants," saying, "They've already broken out and invaded other companies. These immigrants are out of control."
The discussion took place at Forum, a policy debate held at a stylish venue about fifteen minutes from the convention center, organized to let the new American right debate thorny policy questions—particularly tensions between populist activist promises and traditional small-government views, and the rise of artificial intelligence. (The program also included a session on the virtues of peptides.)
The main event featured Allen, who previously served as the "transhumanism editor" on Steve Bannon's podcast War Room, facing off against Joe Lonsdale, a venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder. Allen criticized technology's social effects: "We see the kids being deranged by these technologies. We see education slipping away and falling into the hands of the tech companies, whether through basic ed tech, we're now the new supposed miracle of AI tutors or full on AI teachers." He warned that personal relationships are becoming "more and more disconnected, more and more synthetic," and said people no longer accept the industry's sales pitch.
Lonsdale largely defended AI as part of America's history of frontier technologies that drive economic growth: "We have Kitty Hawk, we have 747s, we built the railroads." In the debate, he compared some AI criticisms to the "Black Lives Matter hysteria" and suggested they were influenced by "psyops from China," an assertion Allen noted was in part based on an X report citing about 200 little-seen accounts.
Allen argued that ordinary people are subject to the decisions of billionaires without being consulted: "People like me are subject to the decisions made by billionaires, and we were not consulted, and to the extent that we have revolted, we've been told we're a lot of reactionary rubes." He said the only real remedy would be intervention from a "big daddy gummint."
The Forum clash fits into a broader, intensifying political context. The politics of AI have heated up after a high-profile resignation at Anthropic on Wednesday, which helped fuel calls for greater regulation. Democrats are increasingly coalescing around stronger government intervention, while Republicans remain split: President Donald Trump recently posted that opponents of data centers want to be "backwards and poor," and other Republican figures have been dismissive of safety warnings. Earlier in the day at the same event, right-wing thinker Curtis Yarvin described Silicon Valley engineers as being "high on their own supply."
An anti-data-center group on the right, Humans First, planned to launch its "Data Center Revolt" bus tour near the convention center on Thursday morning. Allen's performance at the Forum illustrated how MAGA-populist language and ideas are being applied to growing campaigns against large AI companies.
Why this matters
The Dallas debate underscores that the right is not unified on AI and data centers. Some leaders celebrate technological advances as engines of growth, while others emphasize perceived cultural, educational, and societal harms and openly call for government action. Recent developments—the Anthropic resignation and the planned Humans First tour—suggest these issues may play an increasing role in party politics and regulatory debates.
Participants mentioned in the debate
- Joe Allen — former "transhumanism editor" on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast
- Joe Lonsdale — venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder
- Steve Bannon — host of War Room podcast (referenced)
- Curtis Yarvin — right-wing thinker who criticized Silicon Valley engineers
- Donald Trump — president who has commented on data-center opponents
- Humans First — right-wing anti-data-center group planning a bus tour
(article written based on the provided source; quotes and events follow the source)
