Data centers become a midterm talking point, even at a Brooklyn tech gathering

Newsreel, a media company founded by former Forbes and Newsweek reporter Jack Brewster, hosted the Thursday evening gathering, which drew media figures, technologists and policy advocates into a dimly blue-lit Brooklyn warehouse that was already filling up when guests arrived.

The lineup mixed product builders and political operators. Kenneth Schlenker, co-founder of the focus app Opal, sat for a fireside chat billed as a discussion of "the state of attention," while Aryan Ranjan, who built the campaign management software Baraza, delivered a midterm forecast. A panel on data centers was also on the agenda.

Brewster said the aim was to get attendees to set their phones aside and talk to one another about the election with five days to go before voting. As the evening wore on, however, AI, data centers and resistance to what attendees described as a widening technocracy absorbed nearly every conversation, including a council member's fireside chat and a debate about the Democratic Party.

The gap between the industry building AI and the public outside it ran through the room. People who work on AI tend to see its benefits and remain optimistic it will succeed, while those beyond the tech world often regard the buildout as something considerably less attractive.