The Hum
The Hum is a podcast hosted by Saul Levin about who controls the future, featuring interviews with people fighting the march of AI and data centers into every aspect of our lives.
The show is created in partnership with Rowhome Productions.
The Hum
‘Ask your auntie, not AI’: How Seminole Nation permanently banned data centers
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The Seminole Nation in Oklahoma has made international headlines with their unanimously passed ban on AI data centers on their lands. Indigenous organizer Ash Nicole Lamont and Mekusukey Band Representative Chebon Kernell, who introduced the legislation, tell the fascinating story of their community’s successful resistance. They outline the threats of AI data centers to language, tradition, and sovereignty while also questioning how these debates are being prioritized in the first place.
Message us on Instagram @thehumpod to get connected to organizers in your state or country.
Learn more about Ash and the team’s work and fireside chats by following them on Instagram @honortheearth and @stopdatacolonialism and check out the Honor the Earth data center resistance toolkit. Rev. Chebon can be found on Instagram.
Read Saul’s recent Op Ed on data center resistance with Astra Taylor in the Guardian. And listen to Chenjerai Kumanyika’s interview with Saul and Astra on Unruly Subjects.
Coverage of The Hum in El Diario, Spain’s biggest newspaper and a story about data center fights in Harper’s Magazine.
The Hum is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions.
You're listening to the Hum, a new podcast where we are sharing stories from folks across the US who are fighting the march of AI and data centers into every aspect of our lives. I'm Saul Levin, your host. Our listeners have started to reach out for support and connections in their data center fights. This week we heard from musicians in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Hit us up if you want to connect to Resistance near you. Message us at the Hump Pod on Instagram. Last week, I had an empowering conversation with Taylor Frazier McCollum, who left her job doing body waxing at a salon in Maryland to organize her neighbors and clients against data center projects, eventually winning a moratorium. This week, I spoke with Ash Nicole Lamont with the Indigenous Advocacy Group Honor the Earth. I also talked to Reverend Shabon Kernel of the Seminole Nations Tribal Council in Oklahoma. Both were instrumental players in the unanimous ban on AI data centers and artificial general intelligence infrastructure on Seminole Land. Our conversations trace a remarkable story of a community coming together to protect their youth, language, and way of life from the greed of the richest men in the world. Ash, thanks so much for joining us and welcome to the program.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks, Saul. I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so first of all, tell us about you. Tell us about your work and how it led up to this moment of a fight over a moratorium.
SPEAKER_00So I am an enrolled member of the absentee Shawnee tribe of Oklahoma. I'm also Oglala and Shichongu Lakota. And I've been working at Honor the Earth for just about three years now. We've really uh developed campaigns around green colonialism, which led us into this realm of data and techno-colonialism. Um, and really the fight around data centers started when we were fighting um a small modular reactor based around Northern Cheyenne Reservation on Culstrip, uh Montana. And then we learned that that small modular reactor was actually being proposed to uh generate electricity and generate power to a data center. And so then we're like, what? And then here in Oklahoma, um we've become recently unfortunately a hotbed for these uh developers. And so they've just started popping up everywhere. And so um there's some other tribal um members who work for other organizations here in Oklahoma. Um and we've all come together and started hosting town halls and pushing back against some of the tribal efforts and municipal efforts.
SPEAKER_02Why is like, you know, the Seminole Nation such an early adopter in this fight of pushing for a moratorium and increased regulation on AI data centers?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I really just have to shout out um Miko and Seminole Nation representative Shabon Kernel. And he's really just a comrade and um someone that we've uh worked alongside. It was just a natural, yeah, natural collaboration. And um, Miko Shabon Kernel was able to organize um some town hall meetings that we were able to come and provide information to. And over and over again, what we're seeing is the issue of the non-disclosure agreement just really making people really angry because they feel completely cut out of the process. They don't know what the information is that's being shared is, and it feels like it's happening behind their back. And so that was really the impetus for the community to uh feel pretty enraged. And um, through that meeting, um, that really encouraged um the tribal chairwoman to take that resolution that was going to create a non-disclosure agreement between herself and a data center company off of the general counsel agenda. And then um Miko Shabon Colonel um in turn proposed that uh permanent moratorium. And so I think, yeah, they the Seminole Nation, you know, they, the Seminole people have a long and storied history of resistance against colonization. They were, you know, one of the last holdouts against westward westward expansion and even being forced to Oklahoma. Um and so that's really their history and story of resistance. And so I feel like, yeah, it it totally makes sense that they would step into that um resistance uh history. But it's because you know, tribes do have jurisdiction over their lands and have large rural swaths of land that these developers find that attractive because there are ways that we can technically, you know, use our sovereignty to um, you know, pull away from whatever regulations might be set out by the state. Um and so they're like seeing that as an advantage. Um, but they are definitely like as far as Oklahoma goes, like there's so much rural land out here. Um and the same with Montana and South Dakota is that you know, they they definitely they they have their eyes on it. They're going to um tribal spaces like the National Congress of American Indians to really like make these relationships of tribal leaders beforehand and um cut out that whole uh consultation process with the community, and they just know that we have land and that's what they're really going after.
SPEAKER_02We noticed that the vote was 24 to zero on the council, which really stood out to us. And so, somewhat, you know, I mean, there was some really militant organizing going on, but it is privacy and and sort of disclosure one of the key issues that drove that that 24-0 vote. I mean, why do you think it was so unanimous?
SPEAKER_00I think one of the things that, you know, we emphasize in our presentations, and one of the things that we really like hounded on in that conversation there, aside from the non-disclosure agreement, is what this what this technology is being used for. And here in Oklahoma, you know, it wasn't just too long ago that um we uh dealt with Project Guardian, which was, you know, ICE working in concert with our state police. And that had an impact on our tribal um members here in Oklahoma. I mean, to a racist white person, you know, there's not much of a differentiation between tribal members and um people who they are, you know, targeting um through this campaign. And so we actually, you know, we were caught up in that. A lot of our tribal members were detained, were harassed, um, had to encounter um that and navigate that uh that situation with ICE. And a lot of our tribal leaders actually put out uh directives on how to engage in those really those um situations. And so it's very fresh in our minds, you know, exactly how this technology um can be used, you know, against our people specifically. Um but yeah, that that in addition to um data sovereignty and our languages and our culture is definitely something that is concerning to our people. Um a lot of our languages, you know, they can be bastardized, quite frankly, um, through this technology. And we've already seen that happen. And that, you know, is really um disconcerting to, you know, language uh reclamation efforts and um to our cultural and spiritual leaders and our elders who don't want this uh our information being mined in this colonial way and put into this technology.
SPEAKER_02It's remarkable to me the the amount that we hear about the data center fight actually being about a big heist because somewhere, all this language that was developed by millions of people, um, by elders and tribes, by folks who were talking to each other over dinner, who figured out different math problems, who wrote stories, all of the billions of people who have collectively developed language are somehow not receiving the benefits while seven dudes from Silicon Valley and around there are basically massively profiting off of things, including being able to answer questions about sovereign nations in Oklahoma. Could you say a little bit more about the the data sovereignty and what folks on Seminole and other tribal folks you're working with at Under the Earth would like to see? Um, what would be a more appropriate way to think about data storage and uh move away from this theft and consolidation for a few people kind of model?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we definitely recognize, and you know, this has been like a sticky issue about the needs for the different tribes to have a place to store their data. Um, but what we're arguing is that it doesn't need to be these hyperscaled data centers that are owned, like you said, by um these multinational um technofeudal technocrats who are exploiting the data that's um that's being mined and being stored and being sold. And and really right-sizing down really is one of the things that we're encouraging tribes right now, and Cherokee Nation is a good example of this because they are a huge tribe. Um they do have huge uh data uh needs, and you know, they do care about their data sovereignty, um, is to really take an assessment of what are your actual technology needs. Um, I think that what we're seeing is that these developers are coming and like dangling these, you know, fake carrots in front of our tribal leaders, and we are you know pitted against the real life need of being able to economically care for our tribal citizens. Um, but then at the same time, like at what cost and what is the actual um risk involved with that? And so for me, what I what we would like to see at honor the earth around data sovereignty is that belongs to that tribal nation and that tribal nation alone. Um, we think that you know, sovereignty is the right for the tribe, the inherent right for a tribal nation to, you know, decide what's best and and decide what they want and what they don't want for their tribal community. Um, I think we do go a little bit further though to say that like it shouldn't just be the tribal leadership who makes that decision, that tribal sovereignty really depends on the whole community because that is you know what makes a nation. And so it's really important too that the community also has a say in how this data is being stored, where it's going to and what it's being used for. And over and over again, we're just seeing that elders, you know, they they don't want this information being used in this way. What they're wanting is for the youth and for the community to come to them. And so one of the things that we say at Honor the Earth is ask your auntie, not AI. And that really is just, you know, encouraging our communities to return to our traditional ways, our orals, our oral stories, our uh learning how to, you know, make our food with an auntie, you know, going back and learning those stories from the people who hold that information in the community. And so we think it's really important for people to understand that, you know, our nations and our elders, our knowledge holders, our spiritual leaders, our culture bearers, those are the people that have this information. And generative AI is not going to ever replace that. Um, and I think that's one thing that makes Indigenous communities uh unique, um, and another reason why it's so important for us to fight against this technology.
SPEAKER_02Wow, ask your auntie, not AI. That's a good catchphrase. I mean, it's it's it's remarkable because it's like, wait a second. Not only are they coming in and trying to swallow up tribal lands for their corporate projects, not only are they taking data and information about sovereign indigenous languages and cultural information and storing it and then making, you know, charging people to access what's not theirs, but they're actually replacing a key community role that elders and aunties are playing in tribal communities in unserious ways. I mean, you can't replace the role of the older woman next door who teaches you how to, you know, make food or uh understand things. I mean, indigenous communities already have a data center in their elders and in this in stories, and now someone's trying to profit off that theft. Is that kind of how you think about this sort of like data colonialism thing? Is that am I understanding that correctly?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So we see like data colonialism is like the extraction, it's still extraction of indigenous people and lands, but what they're extracting and mining is our information. Um, and so definitely seeing it, you know, right and like exactly in that way. And then just returning back to the language piece really quick. You know, there's just one like very like prescient example that happened not too recently with the Sacken Fox um tribe. They actually did use um some generative AI uh technology for their language program, and it actually translated and pronounced the language incorrectly. And so that's just you know, just going back to the reality that like, yes, um, indigenous people, you know, from our different tribal nations, there's you know, several, there's hundreds of tribal nations here that are federally recognized in the United, so-called United States. And there's even more languages, and um there's less people speaking those languages. So this technology, even if we do want to put our faith into it, it's not gonna have enough data or information to correctly produce back what we need it to. And so, you know, we already saw that happening with uh the Sack and Fox language um here in Oklahoma, that it's you know, it's not even correct, correctly pronouncing it or translating. Um, so I think that's you know another fear. It's it's we don't need that, we don't need this. Um we can reclaim our languages by being in community with each other and you know, talking to each other. That's one thing that capitalism and colonization has done a really good job of is separating us from our community and from each other. And that's you know, one way to combat that is by returning back to that community and having conversations with each other.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it seems like one of the ways that artificial intelligence is really not intelligence and is actually more like, you know, information holding at a large scale is that like if there's a set of information that's held by fewer people and fewer sources, then you know, the AI, you know, the clods and chat GPTs of the world totally mess that stuff up because they're just prioritizing whoever already has the most and resementing the power dynamics in language, um, in information flow, because all of their, you know, a lot of their information was stolen from like Wikipedia or the New York Times or places that are already overrepresenting what's like most widely known and popular. There's a few unusual things about the moratorium that was passed. One of them is is the generative AI piece. I mean, I haven't seen a moratorium yet that has sort of a ban on gen AI use to some degree. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the sort of like this was a ban on not only data centers, but some aspects of artificial intelligence as I understand it. And I was wondering if you could talk about more about what that was and also why that was included.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we just um so the the template resolution that um we created and worked alongside Shabon uh to introduce to the Seminole Nation. And we felt like it's really important to bring these back in conversation with each other because what we're running into in Indian country at least is this real bifurcation of the realities of what this technology is being used for, what it is, and also what these projects are housing them. And so, for example, ASU has a policy center where they're really pushing for the normalization of generative AI, but they're very reticent to acknowledge that this technology requires the build out of these hyperscale data centers that are often being targeted on our lands. And so for us, it's important for them to stay in conversation with each other. Um and it's important for um for these spaces uh to address both of these issues because at the end of the day, um we're also concerned about the use of generative AI, not just the hyperscale data centers, um, for all the reasons that we uh mentioned, in addition to the environmental concerns. Um, and so yeah, we think it's important, and that's uh that's just the template that we're pushing forward is that these need to be in conversation with each other. Maybe it's not just one resolution altogether, maybe it needs to be broken up into two, but they should be introduced together at the same time because it's it's addressing the entire issue as far as we're concerned.
SPEAKER_02That makes sense. And then the other unusual thing about your moratorium, as far as I could see, was that it was indefinite. Most of these moratorium, I think is how you say it, are that are being passed are like 30 days, one year, six months, whatever. And I was reading this and I was like, wait, y'all just said, nope, we're not doing this, period. Um, so I was wondering, I mean, that's a powerful statement. And I think uh something that a lot of people are now looking at it seeing, saying, hey, like look what Seminole did. They didn't say we're not sure, see you in a month. They said, you know, this is actually not appropriate uh for our lands and and we don't support this. So could you talk a little bit more about the indefinite nature or the you know permanent nature of the moratorium that was passed?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, again, I just want to give full credit to that um to Representative Colonel, um, Shabon Colonel, you know, he was just like, well, you know, go in, go in and you know, with the the permanent one, and at the very least, you know, you can debate that down to you know a more appropriate, like what maybe seemed more appropriate, but they all agreed with it. And I think, I think, you know, one of the conversations that we're running into again and again, and I'll I'll just be I'll just name it like Cherokee Nation, they already approved a hyperscale data center project Clydesdell on their territory in Northeast Oklahoma. But now, after you know, having conversations with them and presenting to them what the impacts of these hyperscale data centers are on our lands, they're now they had created a task force investigating the economic and environmental impacts. Um, the reality is that you know, we may not know the full realm and scope of the impacts, but there is plenty of information from scientists, from technologists, from company, the companies themselves that are underscoring and out, you know, describing what these impacts actually are. And so I think, you know, for anyone who's saying that they're a steward of their lands, that they care for future generations, you know, these hyperscale data centers and the mass impact they have on the lands, on the water, and on the communities, is it just it's not even worth seeing what that the impact actually bears out on the people. Um, we're not test subjects. That's what these companies are trying to make us into. Um we're not, you know, sandboxes for them to um see what the impacts of these developments are. Um and also with our rural relatives who you know are not indigenous, our farmers and ranchers, you know, the same with them. We don't need to be test subjects and to see um what these harmful impacts are when we already are pretty clear on the water, the impact on the water, which should be alarming to itself. And the one in Seminole, they're um actually pitching a uh fracking um operation to power it. Um, but we don't need these additional like nuclear build-ons, these um these fracking build-ons, um, in places like Oklahoma where we're already dealing uh with the harsh impacts of hydraulic fracking. And we already know we already fought nuclear. We don't want nuclear again.
SPEAKER_02Makes sense. So you all are working at this intersection of Indian countries' resistance to data centers and AGI, and also the the broader fight in Oklahoma, which seems to have been uh in many cases bipartisan uh across different age groups. Could you talk a little bit more about the broader fights in those communities, both in Oklahoma and across Indian country, about what you're seeing and what you think is coming next?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so just the nature of the way Oklahoma is, um, with the way that allotment like uh happened and unfolded, you know, we're um running up against tribal jurisdictions being within like uh city municipalities. And so um, so that's really what the situation is. So these data centers are still on tribal jurisdiction, um, but they're within a city and a municipality. And so they're kind of like border towns, and some of them are like fully within our jurisdiction of tribal nations. And yeah, it's been really amazing. It's the last time that I've seen um people come together and coalesce in this way around an environmental fight was with the fracking um fight, and that's when um we were having like such a huge explosion of um these uh frack quakes that were really harming our infrastructure and um with imminent domain and a lot of these fracking wells just popping up in people's backyards who uh lived in unincorporated townships. And so that was really the last time I've seen anything like this. And I would say that this is actually um even more than that because it's everywhere we go, it's not just in Oklahoma, it's in Montana too, in South Dakota, um, are some of the other places that we're um engaged in. And these uh communities, these rural communities, um, non-native communities, they don't want this either. And it's it's you know, they're they're feeling the same, the same threats around, you know, they have a care and um stewardship over their lands because a lot of them are farmers and ranchers, and that's how they sustain themselves and they have for generations, you know. Whether I agree with that on the colonial stance or not, you know, that's that. But they do care about that land. And And I think that that's one thing that does join us together in this fight is that care for the land and future generations. And not wanting to be, you know, a test subject. You know, no here in Oklahoma, we don't want to be treaded on. And that's something that's really been a joining issue in this fight is the non-disclosure agreements and these companies coming in, acting like they know what's best for us. When we haven't even met with them, they won't meet with us and we don't even know what they're doing. And so that's definitely been some of the ways that we've been able to coalesce. We've been talking to different tribal leaders all throughout Oklahoma and Turtle Island. And this is just the same thing happening over and over again, is that the company will come to someone either on tribal council or maybe their business council, just a decision maker. And basically what they'll do is they'll, if that person does sign the NDA, it'll deadlock the entire council into that agreement and prevent them from being transparent with the community. And so we're actually seeing this not just with the tribal nations, but also with the different like rural municipalities or and even in Tulsa Project Anthem, which is a meta company, they actually came to one of the city council members and signed an NDA with them and uh it deadlocked the tri or the uh the city council into that agreement um in for a while until the community pushed back. And so we're also seeing um because of these NDAs and just to let leadership know you don't have to sign an NDA to have a discussion with a company. So don't buy that. Um but uh we're also seeing communities being successful in overturning NDAs. So Coita is an example in Oklahoma of the community just being so pissed off that the leadership signed this NDA and deadlocked them into these agreements without their knowledge, um that they were actually able to overturn it and get like a full NDA and see what was in there. And they were able to basically persuade the company to pull out of their um development um proposal. And so we're also seeing a lot of companies pulling out because the community doesn't want them. But you're right, it's it's people of all demographics, all backgrounds, all political persuasions. We're seeing um legislation coming from Republicans in the in our House of Representatives in Oklahoma. Um and we're also seeing um moratorium that just passed in Tulsa, um, which is a pretty um extraction-friendly um place, um, not nationally known for that. Um, and so I think that it's pretty amazing that this this fight is, um, I haven't really pinpointed what it is, but this fight is um remarkably different um from the other extractive fights, and it's something widespread that no one wants, except for the developers.
SPEAKER_02You're listening to the hum. You just heard from Ash Nicole Lamont, whose advocacy alongside allies laid the groundwork for the passage of groundbreaking legislation. Now we hear from Reverend Chabon Kernel, an elder and councilman on the Seminole Tribal Council who introduced that legislation. He explains how they got it done. Chabon, thank you so much for spending time with us this morning.
SPEAKER_01No, it's my pleasure. Anything that we can do to educate uh the world around us about you know some of the things that are being presented for us.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. So let's just start with how did you get so deeply involved in this issue? I mean, what led you to introduce legislation to keep AI data centers out of your territories?
SPEAKER_01Uh, we kind of have to go back several years and really even my life. I I've done a lot of work um protecting our earth mother, trying to help our communities remember our relationship that we're supposed to have with this Mother Earth and the intimacy at one time that our indigenous cultures had. So I've had that history of protecting our lands, and even some of our good colleagues and I, that's kind of how we became more acquainted with each other over the past five years with some of our work in protecting the Muscogian homelands back in Georgia, Alabama, North Florida, of trying to protect some of our last natural forests that are in existence there from being bulldozed, extracted from. So that kind of work has always been there. Um, I guess you could say, I've I've been able to find a platform within a Christian denomination to help kind of amplify the voice of why we can't be extractive. How do we come back to remembering we're just one small piece of the greater whole? And fast forward, you know, many, many years, and then all of a sudden we come to about July, August of 2025. Now, and then we start to see this, whatever we want to call it. I don't even know if we've coined a terminology of this movement to just radically instill data centers across the United States and really across the world, not just here. We just started started to see it amplify. And so my my good relatives and my colleagues and comrades, they asked me, they said, would you like to get back involved again some more? And what happened was that we as uh Semino people, we also identify as Muscogee people. So we don't differentiate from Muscogee Nation, Semino Nation, that kind of thing. We all have the same lineage, the same history, the same homelands. And so at that point, last year in 2025, they asked me, will you help us? Because there's being uh a proposal is being brought forward to our Muscogee Nation lands in Oklahoma about the potential development of a hyperscale data center. And I said, No, absolutely. I'm ready. Let me know what you need from me, and I'll do the best that I can. Unbeknownst to me that fast forward even further, several months later, that a same type of proposal would come before the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, and that even at that same time, I would find myself in a general counsel seat when that proposal came before us. So that's kind of how it all transpired.
SPEAKER_02And your legislation that you proposed was a ban. It was, as I understand it, it wasn't a temporary pause. It was saying, on these indigenous lands, we actually just aren't going to want data centers now or later. We don't need this. This isn't working for us. Can you tell me a little bit about that decision about how you all designed this policy?
SPEAKER_01As council representatives, we report to what we call in the Seminole Nation our band. So I'm the Mikosiki band representative. And I did not have any formal requests. I didn't know this request uh proposal was coming up. It was just about less than a week before our general council meeting, there was an agenda item on there that said a request to enter a non-disclosure agreement with a particular company to explore the development of a data center. And that's what caught my attention. I wasn't even in town. I my my wife, my partner, she she texted me and said, Hey, did you see your agenda? They put it out on social media. And I said, Not yet. You know, I was actually in DC and I looked it up real quick and I was like, oh my goodness. And I it was kind of funny. I said, this is going to be my priority for the next few weeks. Uh so this is going to take away from anything else that I was working on. And so we just started. I I quickly messaged our folks that have been those allies that we've been a part of. And the first thing that I wanted to do is to kind of educate, to tell tri seminal tribal members, hey, this is why this is a bad deal. This is what my experience has shown us to show me to why I take a stance against these kind of data centers and historically, you know, and kind of just sharing the story of why this isn't something that we want for our territories and our lands, and even informing that decision with our indigenous cosmology, of that reciprocity, of that understanding of intimacy with this earth and her elements and all the things that she provides us. But one of the basic rules that we have amongst our traditional people is the protection of our children and the protection of our children that are yet to be born into this world. And the way that I articulated that as I said, you know, we've done already enough damage to this earth that they're going to inherit. Those generations yet to come are going to inherit so much of our neglect of the damage that we're doing everywhere, every direction we look, not just with data centers, but in other extractive industries and whatnot, every direction we look, they're already going to have everything they can handle, even more so. Uh, as we see, you know, the temperatures rising, global temperatures, all these things, sea levels rising. Um, then we're gonna throw the water shortage on on top of all that. And and I said, we we've got to take a stand. Does it is it does it solve the overall problem? No. Um, but it's at least showing the resistance to say there's a better way to exist in this world around us. Um, and for us as indigenous people, that better way is being informed by our ancestors and the processes that they live by, the cosmology that they live by. And so we we in a matter of like five days, we we scheduled a town hall, we invited the community out, we started talking about, we had our band meetings, and I said, I'm not voting for this, and this is why. And so we were able to have that agenda item pulled off the agenda to take it off. Say, no, we're not even going to debate this. And I was thankful for that because um, you know, we it it was a it was a matter of, you know, we're not going to consider it. But in my opinion, that wasn't enough, especially seeing all of these uh entities out there, all of these companies and and what have you, the way they every two days it's something different. It's something new, a new argument, a new request, uh, something that's happening. Uh so the arguments that we were fighting back in October or September of last year are different than what we're doing now, uh, trying to educate uh here in 2026. And so I said, no, that's not going to be enough just to take it off the uh agenda. And so I told everyone, I didn't make it a surprise. I shared with them, I said, because this is gonna come back, and I don't want us to have to think about this in the same way with the same energy and the same concern and all of these things, I said, I'm going to do what we call a verbal resolution on our floor of our general counsel. And I had my language there. Um, I'm thankful for Honor the Earth and Indigenous Environmental Network, whose representatives helped me very much so to get to help me conceptualize the wording, you know, legal legal wording to help put it to together. And I was prepared and I said, this is what I want to do. And I bumped it up on the agenda so that you know we had time to debate it or to if there was a debate, and we we moved it up and we talked about it, and there was actually no debate. Um, everyone had an opportunity to to come to the town hall, everyone had an opportunity to share or to ask questions before even the general council meeting took place. And so when it all came up, I actually was proposing a four-year uh moratorium. And as we were as we were discussing it, I had one of my good representatives who I had not consulted with. Um there's 28 members on this general council, so it's actually pretty large. He stood up and he said, Well, why don't we just go ahead and not put a time limit to it and just make this, you know, a permanent moratorium? And I said, I will gladly accept that amendment to this resolution. I said, My concern was that I didn't think people would do a permanent one. Um, I didn't think they were ready, you know. I thought they would want it to be short term. And I was gladly and excited about that amendment. I said, nope, that's something, and I told them, I said, you do realize this is on the floor. I said, you realize there's more of a permanent um understanding if we take away the time limit to this and we put this moratorium in place. And everyone agreed. And lo and behold, when the vote came down, it was uh unanimous um that we voted uh against that. And so it was kind of uh a moment because even in the midst of that vote, questions were being asked of me on the floor. So, do you mean I shouldn't be letting my family or my children use the things that rely on hyperscale data centers, like all of these artificial intelligence modalities and whatnot? And that actually started arising and actually still is uh a conversation amongst the community. And so I just said, well, there's many ways I can answer that. Number one, as a father, but then also as a traditional practitioner, and I shared with them on the floor. I said, This is something that we can't uh allow our communities to go into that direction for a host of reasons, because it erodes our understanding of the indigeneity that we have in our lives and in our cosmology. And I said, this is not something that replaces the organ organic life that we have as indigenous peoples. So those quite those questions came up on the floor. And so I answered them as best as I could, and we walked away with that moratorium. And lo and behold, as we looked at it and we researched, it I think it the way they said it, I think we were the first. And after that, there's been a few other tribal communities that have put a moratorium, and now we're starting to even see the enhancement of municipalities, cities, different ones starting to instill their moratoriums uh, you know, in the past month and a half or so. So you kind of see it keep uh picking up steam. But I guess I I think we're uh we were the first, if not one of the first, to do that. And I'm actually thankful, like I said, because this is not something we need to be devoting our time and energy to. We need to be devoting our time and energy to the well-being of our communities, all the things we have to contend with as colonized communities. And I'm I'm glad that we were able to succeed in this endeavor.
SPEAKER_02It's remarkable to me that you're talking about this as essentially not to be crass, but it's it's a waste of time. You're basically saying not only do we not want hyperscale AI data centers in our territory on our nation's land, but also we don't want to be spending time like trying to figure out if developers are telling the truth or if it's a good deal because we have other things to work on. Is that right?
SPEAKER_01I I I think so. And even I'm at risk of doing a level of violence to my own cosmology because in in our way, you know, we don't have uh those concepts of time. We have a way of existing, you know, whether it's with the harvest, whether it's with uh ceremonial season. But in essence, that is kind of what what I'm sharing at, because I'd rather be thinking about how do we enhance um emergent experiences and preserving our indigenous language. How do we enhance, you know, even this came down in late February and March. You know, we should have been thinking about where we can have our relationship with this land so that we can place seeds back in the ground because it's the planting season. You know, we're still kind of at the end of it now, but it's time to start thinking about these things so that we're not just part of an extractive um uh capitalistic society that we come back to indigenous values. Conceptualizing those things is what I'd rather be doing than, you know, just continually, you know, fighting off, you know, things that, you know, same uh the same type of extractive endeavors that my ancestors fought off. You know, years at years and years ago, decades and decades ago, we were doing these same things. And even now, you know, during I one of the things I didn't say um during that debate leading up to the moratorium is that we even got a notification that, oh, we don't want a non-disclosure agreement NDA, we just want a letter of intent. So a legal document got shifted in the matter of two days. And I said, see, that's even a bigger red flag to enter into something that's totally different than an NDA, uh, a letter of intent. I said, no. I said, we're not gonna do any of that. And so it didn't, it didn't change anything. Um, but I I guess I would rather be thinking about how do we put the the uh uh a structure in place to help us as we navigate through society today with all the the social ailments that might be present, uh all the spiritual needs that we might have, as opposed to debating, you know, for for hours on end this type of request from us.
SPEAKER_02That's really interesting. I've I've actually never heard that before. I've talked to dozens of people about this and just the basic idea that like there are other things that we want to be thinking about. It's really powerful. So you mentioned uh a few times that not only data centers, but AI itself and sort of the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence technology are in conflict with the cosmologies of your people. Could you say a little bit more for folks who maybe don't know exactly what that means? Like what are you talking about when you say that those things are in conflict?
SPEAKER_01In Indigenous cosmology, and for sure, of our Southeastern peoples, how we understand things is that we are organic beings. That, you know, we had elders that talked about, you know, the importance of how we live life, how we interact with other human beings, how we interact with creation, um, all of creation, including this earth. And uh, one of the things they would always say is that everything that we do has to come from our heart, from in here. And that's something that can never be duplicated. That is something that can never be, you know, kind of artificially manufactured. You know, the the emotions of life, the the well-being, the communication that we do with our body and our spirit. You know, how many times have we seen maybe a prolific speaker or someone come into a room and said, as soon as they walked in the room, you could feel their presence. You know, all of these things. That that's a part of life and how we exist, that this world around us birthed our languages, it birthed our clans. And it's not something that anything that a computer or a program or anything can ever do. And one of the arguments that we hear is constantly AI can can help your language preservation efforts, indigenous languages. You know, I just came from the United Nations last week, you know, and it was a hot topic everywhere of using artificial intelligence, data centers, all of these things. And we watched a video. And I guess uh the way that it was going as a young person had trained a robot to speak in the Anishinaabe Ojibwe language, and there was a moderator that was interviewing for like a podcast or some kind of video, and he started joking around and said, Oh, yeah, I would much rather talk to a robot than my own grandmother. That shocked me that we normalize that kind of conversation. And I'm like, what? Because nothing, I mean, I I lost all of my grandparents untimely. There's nothing that I would ever do uh that could have replicated that interaction. I want to be with them, I want to speak with them. And in fact, when when we're in our ceremonies, some of the things when I sing our songs and when I say in a uh we call it Muskogee Obunaga in our language, that's who I'm thinking about, is that day when I'm gonna talk to them again. Uh when we're coming together in our cosmology. Uh it's such a profound thing that nothing can replace it. In fact, they live in my heart, and nothing can replace that living in my heart, in my spirit. And but that's what we've done. We've normalized it to say, okay, well, as long as we get as much as we can into the software, into the memory banks, then we'll be okay. But will we? And that's the reality that I keep saying uh is that it doesn't replicate things. In fact, it's just another generation of extraction from our people. And especially when we think about where we don't even know how deep the connections go of extraction from artificial intelligence, because right now they're not sure if we can control what it's learning, what it's doing, the outputs of that, and if it can be taken back out. I've talked with other, you know, I'm a part of the Global Indigenous Language Caucus that meets around the permanent forum on indigenous issues at the UN. And they talked about, well, when the time comes, we're just going to take it all out of our AI tools. And I'm like, I don't even know if that's possible to to remove that. And so we don't we don't even know the the dangers that that exist there. And so those are some of the things that I think about when I when I talk about what does that mean when it contradicts our way of existing. But then it goes back to our religion as Southeastern peoples. I have I just mentioned a few minutes ago, you know, one of our core laws that we have, and that's what they call it, they call it a law, is that we try to protect those generations yet to come. And to think, you know, during the midst of all of this data center craze and this moment here, you know, we see the United Nations putting out the report about a water bankruptcy across the world. Um, we already know uh what's going on here in the United States in terms of water and even in the Semino Nation, you know, community, water's not plentiful in that in our territories. And so when we just think about, you know, our generations not having water to drink, and that is actually happening. You know, we started connecting the dots, you know, of some of these data centers, like in Georgia, that there are actually non indigenous residents who are going to their their own well systems, they're going to their faucets and turning it on and nothing's coming out. And so you're seeing that impact right before our eyes. And to think that if we don't resist or out of Our negligence, we make a decision that our children go there and try to quench a thirst, try to sit drink something that that's from this earth that's pure that can give them life, and they won't have it. There's not a bigger grievance or crime against humanity than that, just by itself. And so just trying to do what we can to protect their innocence and their well-being. That's what my hope is. And that's in our religion. We talk about that all the time. We'll we'll dance, we'll fast, we'll we'll use our medicinal practices, our renewal ceremonies. And that's one of the things we say is that this is what we're here for, is so that they can have a better, uh, safe existence uh around us. That's what it means for me to be indigenous. When it all comes down to it, we live in a community. We live together. And these types of understandings is we don't want anyone to suffer. We don't want anyone to go without uh the necessities of life. You know, indigenous peoples across the world talk about the four elements of earth, wind, water, and fire, all of these things. We want to be able to navigate those elements so that we can have a quality of life that is sustainable, that is full uh uh of wellness. That's what we want for all of our children, no matter what walk of life they come from, no matter what language they might speak, no promises of saving our culture or replicating our culture or whatever it is, whatever promises is coming up for this given day, it's not going to do that. But going back to the the ways of our ancestors that have been here for literally millennia upon millennia upon millennia versus an extractive society that here, at least in this hemisphere, has been here roughly three centuries. That's what my hope is people can start to say, okay, there's a better way. There's a better way of existing as we try to create the the world around us.
SPEAKER_02Tell me this. One of the things that I've been hearing from some, you know, pundits who are writing op-eds in the New York Times or Jacobin magazine is that a moratorium could lead to less equitable outcomes because people are pushing out data centers one place and they'll go somewhere else. Which I think conveys sort of a inevitability about the power of corporations driving this technology. And I'm curious how you would respond to that. You know, that sort of critique of pauses or bans on data center technology and how you think about that question.
SPEAKER_01Every time we come up with resistance, a new question is presented, a new uh uh almost like an alternative. Well, what about this? Well, what if we do this? What if we do this? And so it's evolved you know in the past year tremendously. So I do think that there are not everyone is uh, how shall we say, dedicated to those types of values, those types of understandings of existence that I might have just you know spoken about. That there are those that even that maybe they are uh going to get a short-term financial benefit or something like to that effect. Um there are communities that are you know engaging in this. Um, but in the long run, that's what we have to continue to educate ourselves because the pedagogy that is used to say economic benefit, uh, financial output, all of these things, that's not what I would say is an indigenous pedagogy, an indigenous foundation of existence. Everything I've just shared with you, that's what we base wellness off of, not on the amount of the illusion of wealth, of financial wealth. And that's really what we have to start start teaching again, is that we surround ourselves with this concept of capitalism and the hoarding of money and trying to get control of that that capital, that money. And that's you know, that's something that we have to realize is that that's not the solution. That we have to start basing, you know, what does it mean to be sustainable and and well as a people? And so for me, the values that dictate that definition, that define that definition of wellness will be are my children speaking our language? Are we touching this mother earth to provide us to put seeds into the earth to harvest as our ancestors harvested? Are we not putting anything? Are we not consuming the way that we society has taught us to consume with everything? Single-use plastics, you know, air conditioning, all of these things that we have normalized today. Um, are we starting to resist that and pull back and come back to a more holistic way? Those to me, that's the true understanding of wellness, of wealth, even, is that that's where where it all begins. You know, when we think about you know things that our indigenous peoples have to face, we we think about all these contexts of missing and murdered indigenous relatives, missing and murdered indigenous peoples, that, you know, I would say, are my daughters safe to walk down the streets, uh, to go from place to place and ceremony, uh, you know, driving home early in the morning after dancing all night, are they okay uh in their understanding of their existence where they won't be taken, where they won't be kidnapped and and unalived in some form or fashion? That that's what I'm looking for. You know, even coming back into a relationship with this earth is that most of our peoples, then when we think about it, have been moved to reservations, reservation systems, and then even some have been urbanized that you know we don't even know what it's like to be owned by the earth again, to come back into a place of true safety. I would say true ownership, but I don't want people to misunderstand it because it's not us owning this earth, but it's the earth owning us again and coming back into that relationship. That's what I would base well-being off of in those contexts, as opposed to uh financial gain and and wealth and being, and I heard I've heard this this part of the argument a lot is that you're gonna be left behind. I'm like, no, no, we're not. I do not want to be left behind in practicing a way of life that's been here longer than this country, uh, a hundred times here longer than this country. I don't want to be left behind in terms of speaking our our languages, our indigenous uh uh languages from across Turtle Island, everywhere. I don't want to be left behind in the values that that teaches us how to interact with our children, how to interact with our elders. Um I don't want to be left behind in doing my meditations when I see that first light break the morning horizon every day to realize that this is you know a special moment that we have as creation, that if you look at all the cosmos and we think that we're able to enjoy life like we have with all the complexities of life, that how does that happen? You know, how how we come to this moment where we where we can experience joy and happiness and fellowship with each other, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. And so I'll get up in the morning. I'm never gonna forget that's how I want to base you know wealth off of is being able to see that every day, to be able to do those things. And money and concepts of money has not been around since the beginning of time. There were other ways of existing that have been around. We've forgotten those, we've normalized and made ourselves crippled by thinking we need to have money, and there is a better way of existing if we can start looking at those things that truly should be understood as valuable in our lives.
SPEAKER_02Do you think that uh these fights against data centers have potential to spark a broader popular resistance to the enormous control that the elite class and billionaires have? It seems like data centers represent, you know, are a physical representation of the way that social media and the internet more broadly, and now artificial intelligence are coming into the lives of every person without consent, without need, and being sort of jammed into people's every day. And now people are fighting back against data centers not just because they don't want a polluting infrastructure on their farmlands or, you know, in their next to their houses, but it's not just NIMBY. It seems to me that there's potential for a larger coming together. And I'm curious how you think about, you know, that question of what is the data center resistance movement in your territory and beyond represent in terms of a broader coming together and resistance, if anything.
SPEAKER_01I I believe that's something that has been pleasantly surprising when I see some of the town halls that we've been a part of, when I've seen some of the conversations that that we had. Even when we did ours within the Semino Nation of Oklahoma, we had our town hall meeting, we had representatives from the municipality of the city of Seminole, which is the non-Native American entity, they came over and were listening. And they were actually, you know, they were wanting that if this didn't stop, this uh data center potential didn't stop, they wanted our representatives to come over there and give a presentation for the city. And I don't know how many times in history something like that has happened. Um, I know in in a lot of situations, the relationship between the indigenous and non-indig indigenous is at best antagonistic. And so I've seen you know us sit at a table and break bread together with that common interest of saying, you know, this is not something that's going to be good no matter what direction you're coming from. And so I'm hoping that that we can continue to build that trust and relationship by number one, finally just seeing each other, recognizing the presence of each other and communicating and talking. You know, we're we're owned by this earth in a certain part of my family, is that we, you know, we have uh some lands and territories that we're able and thankful to call home here in in Oklahoma. And we have a neighbor that's to our south, that um political philosophies could not be any far separate from each other, you know, one side versus the other side. And we we were just sitting, just talking, getting to know each other, you know, sharing things, and how we can how can we look out for each other, that kind of stuff. And I mentioned data centers, and 100, 1000%. Oh my goodness, we've got to keep that out of our land. We gotta and that neighbor just went off. And like I said, just total two solar systems of political philosophies, but we had a commonality. And my hope is that through communicating, we realize we have more things in reality that connect us than that separate us. It's just we're in a moment that is so polarizing right now that it's really hard to just navigate what we see being thrown at us without just being closed, without just you know, shutting everything off. And so my hope is that we can continue to build that because, like I said, we don't want anyone to be poisoned by the water. We don't want anyone to go thirsty. We don't know the condition of the water that's coming out of the cooling systems of these data centers, you know, what's it going to be be like when it goes back into river systems, water systems, whatever it might be, if it goes back at all. I do think this moment, there's a chance that we can start continuing to build uh together to say, you know, what is the the long term? What is what how do we understand our existence together? And I have seen that happen. And I and I'm actually thankful. Like I said, some of our our town hall meetings have been very eclectic. And even here here for the the city of Oklahoma City when they just passed a moratorium maybe about one month ago. Uh, I don't uh I don't want to put a date on our wonderful podcast here, but uh just a few weeks ago they passed a moratorium here in the city of Oklahoma City, and it was other representatives that uh some of our colleagues with Honor the Earth had been helping out, and they were using the statistics and the information that was uh provided for them. And so you in essence you saw an indigenous representative talk to another city, municipality that was non-indigenous. And so now now their their moratorium, I think, was like nine months or something like that. It wasn't the full uh permanent or or a year, but but you're seeing that partnership, whereas historically you may not have seen that partnership there. So my hope is that we can continue to walk down this path of life together and realize that you know so much has been done already that you know we have a choice in how we exist here, and we don't have to, we don't have to accept this. I think the the term that I keep hearing is that we're married to artificial intelligence, we're married to this necessity. I'm like, no, we have a choice. We have a choice on how we exist, we have a choice on how we communicate with each other, how we utilize certain emails or non not uh certain websites on emails. We have a choice in what we do. It's just what we choose to go back to something simpler, something more holistic. Uh something with, you know, I come from a culture that still is an oral culture. Will we go back to, you know, as funny as it may sound, Saul, will we go back to a day and time of face-to-face interactions again? Of, you know, going and knocking on the door of your neighbor and having a conversation, maybe sharing Sunday dinner again, uh, you know, sharing a meal together, um, those kinds of things that that permeated society before we got to this moment in time.
SPEAKER_02That's wonderful. The the basic idea of we have a choice is so empowering and to say, you know what, this isn't is not only inevitable, but people can come together and and decide how we want to live. Well, Chabon, thank you so much for spending the time with me today. And I look forward to staying in communication and continuing to be inspired by the work that you're doing.
SPEAKER_01We'll keep uh the we'll keep the resistance going and just try to continue to walk together in this life in in all its beauty and all its uh the notion of it being a miracle, everything that it provides for us. So I'm thankful that you've included me, Saul. And I know there's gonna be a host of others that have things to say, and I know together it's out of a love and a passion that we have for the world around us and what we produce, how we speak to our children, how we speak to generations yet to come.
SPEAKER_02Those were my conversations with Ash Nicole Lamont and Chabon Kernel in Oklahoma on Seminole Land. Their successful fight to ban data centers has inspired other indigenous nations and local governments to push for data center bans and AI guard rotants. You've been listening to The Hum. We are publishing new episodes weekly. So if you like what you heard, please download and subscribe to the show and make it a central aspect of your personality. Message us on Instagram at TheHumPod to get connected to organizers in your state or country. The Hum is produced in partnership with Rohome Productions. Rohome's creative director is Alex Lewis. Their executive producer is John Myers. Our producer is Emily Risdow. The Hum's video producer is Adotrahan, and we partner with the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Research. I'm Stall Levin, your host and banjo journeyman. Thanks for listening and see you next Tuesday. Rohome Productions.
