This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

As a California state senator, Scott Wiener authored legislation aimed at curbing the risks of advanced AI. Now, after winning a tight congressional race for Nancy Pelosi’s open San Francisco seat, he could play a key role in setting federal AI policy.

I spoke with Wiener only a few hours after he had been declared the victor. But he was already thinking about AI risk: during our 20-minute conversation, he used the phrase “recursive self-improvement” half a dozen times. 

“We need to slow this down,” he told me. “Because it’s moving very quickly, and we could sleepwalk into a disaster.” Still, he describes himself as only “cautiously optimistic” about Congress’s ability to rein in AI. Here’s what he plans to do about it.

As voters went to the polls across the US last week, I was in Ashburn, Virginia, part of what’s known as Data Center Alley—the world’s largest data center hub. It’s also where the backlash sweeping the country arguably first began to take shape.

Big Tech has framed the data center uproar as a culture war over progress. But a few days in Ashburn convinced me the real fault line may be electricity: drawing it from the grid or generating it onsite provokes different forms of blowback.

The industry can improve its image, but it can’t escape the consequences of its enormous appetite for electricity.

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