Op-ed: AI concerns based in reality
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An editorial cartoon image drawn by conservative Christian cartoon editorialist Gary Varvel was recently printed in an edition of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel. The drawing featured four panels of the character Chicken Little (of "the sky is falling!" fame). From left to right, the first two panels show Chicken Little shouting "Global warming is going to kill us!" followed by "Climate change is going to kill us!" In the third panel Chicken Little checks his smartphone, then the fourth and concluding panel shows Chicken Little shouting "AI is going to kill us!" The caption at the bottom of the panels reads "Chicken Little (Updated)."
The News and Sentinel has faithfully run Climate Corner columns submitted by writers on behalf of the climate and environmental nonprofit I helped found and have helped lead since 2015, Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action, since March 2021. The paper certainly has every right to run such a cartoon and the editorialist certainly has every right to express his opinion on climate change and AI. I rolled my eyes when I saw it while reading the print copy of the paper I still get every weekend and moved on.
I'm writing this response to the cartoon, however, because the threats posed by global anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change and advanced AI powered by hyperscale (very large and power-intensive) data centers are not the delusions of an avian hypochondriac; they are very real and potentially existential.
This cartoon was run in the local paper just as Parkersburg, a city at the confluence of two major rivers, was sitting at 6.76" (and counting) above its normal year-to-date precipitation level (39.02" vs. the normal YTD level of 32.26"). Four of the five years with the highest levels of precipitation in Parkersburg in records dating back a full century have occurred just since 1989. Extreme precipitation and flooding events are becoming far more frequent throughout West Virginia. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture (about 7% more for every one-degree centigrade of warming). This is just one of the better-studied effects of climate change that is prominent in our region.
We have a magnificent floodwall in Parkersburg and that's great, but what do these higher levels of precipitation and more frequent and severe flood occurrences mean for life along the Ohio and Little Kanawha rivers and their creek and stream tributaries in the years ahead? What do they mean for local tourism, as dependent as it is on Point Park and Blennerhassett Island? We ignore such considerations and the public policy needed to help address these concerns at our peril.
As for AI, well, I wouldn't call AI researchers like Jacob Coxon, who recently resigned from Anthropic over fears of the dangers of superintelligence, Chicken Littles. Whistleblowers throughout the AI industry have estimated, or agreed with estimates, that the odds for AI superintelligence to cause full-fledged human extinction in the next decade run at about 10%. A 10% chance of extinction caused by AI predicted by experts in relevant fields over the next decade is not a Chicken Little scenario.
The Republican supermajority in the West Virginia Legislature, at the behest of the Morrisey administration and led by the West Virginia Speaker of the House, who has offered paid legal services to the corporate entities involved, has stripped local control and syphoned local revenues from communities faced with the rapid onslaught of data center buildout (see: HB 2014, made law in 2025). Communities in Tucker, Mason, Putnam and Mingo counties, among others, who are fighting these oncoming monstrosities and their state government at the same time, are not Chicken Littles. They know well the threats to their water, utility bills, grid stability, health and lived environments posed by these facilities.
The Trump regime and Republicans in Congress certainly take opposition to the continued development of advanced AI and the continued buildout of hyperscale data centers seriously. The Department of Justice announced in a Sept. 16 press release that they intend to consider someone a potential "agent of a foreign power" if they "organize any public activity, including... public demonstrations designed to further the propaganda or other goals of a foreign power" under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The day before the DOJ press release, Republicans in Congress held a hearing on "foreign influence operations," at which they called on the FBI to investigate the movement opposing new AI data centers as "a Chinese influence operation." Attempting to expand the reach of the FARA statute beyond the current interpretation, which specifies that someone must actually operate under the direction of a foreign entity to have to register as a foreign agent, so as to create a dragnet to scoop up those openly opposing continued advanced AI and hyperscale data center development and expansion is clearly meant to enable and instigate a witch hunt. You don't engage in such an initiative to silence Chicken Littles.
The U.S. currently has approximately 642 hyperscale data centers in operation, vs. approximately 190 currently operating in China. The U.S. artificial intelligence market is valued at approximately $244 billion, as of 2025. Those who truly believe the claims that the continued development and buildout of advanced AI and hyperscale data centers is about global competition, national security or advancing collective human prosperity and well-being are the ones as naïve and delusional as Chicken Little. As for the rest of us, I guess we're all Sarah Connor now.
Eric Engle is a resident of Parkersburg.