Chris Nicholson and I recently wrote about the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP)'s plans to use "AI" to streamline permitting workflows. This comes at a time when US historical preservation protections (esp. Section 106) face multiple legislative and regulatory threats.
See: https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=870459&p=21&view=issueViewer
#archaeology #culturalheritage #section106 #policy #AI #governance
The ACHP is contracting with Google for the new "AI" system. Google is a major investor and developer of AI data centers. These data centers projects can be enormous and often require hugely disruptive use of land for the data centers themselves and for the power and cooling infrastructure they require.
#archaeology #culturalheritage #section106 #policy #AI #governance
So, the ACHP wants to use Google's AI algorithms to regulate Google's AI data center plans? Doesn't this seem like a clear conflict of interest?
#archaeology #culturalheritage #section106 #policy #AI #governance
For context, Google has committed a cool $200 billion in data center investments for 2026 alone. I'm sure Google will have zero temptation to use it's AI systems to influence permitting regulation (sarcasm): https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-increases-2026-capex-195-205bn-as-it-accelerates-ai-data-center-buildout/
#archaeology #culturalheritage #section106 #policy #AI #governance