Last semester, Bowdoin College (which I attend) accepted a $50 million gift from Netflix’s co-founder to prepare the next generation of Polar Bears for a world “reshaped by AI.” I can’t say this development surprised me, as I have watched artificial intelligence gradually sneak its way onto my campus, with 87% of Bowdoin students admitting to AI use in some capacity when surveyed by our college newspaper.

Not 40 minutes down I-295, some of the first students at Northeastern University’s Roux Institute were finishing the academic year at their newly opened Portland campus. Similar in mission to Bowdoin’s new AI institute, the Roux Institute’s founders seek to coax Maine into becoming a “leader in AI.”

This is the continuation of an ongoing and worrying trend of haphazard AI adoption in this state as Maine’s CEOs trip over themselves pushing AI proliferation and Gov. Janet Mills continues to greenlight grants rooted in this destructive technology.

As congressional Republicans attempt to ban AI regulation by states and MIT studies the negative impact of ChatGPT use on our cognition, it has never been more important to discuss Maine’s connection to AI.

Moreover, contrary to what Maine’s tech entrepreneurs claim, striding headlong into AI development as a cornerstone of Maine’s burgeoning economy is not just short-sighted, it’s downright irresponsible.

Sustainable prosperity for Maine means creating good, middle-income jobs and providing wage support and retraining for workers affected by AI development. It would also mean increasing investment in educational and vocational opportunities for all Mainers, not just Portland tech gurus. Investing in AI runs contrary to each and every one of these goals.

There is assuredly a market for AI, or more accurately, digital models that generate representations of often pirated data to respond to user queries. However, this market is a bubble fit to burst, rendering it an unsustainable venture to rely on for Maine’s future. Drawing on reporting from The American Prospect, just seven Big Tech companies are responsible for 71% of AI companies’ total gains in the S&P 500.

Moreover, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta expect to spend more than $320 billion this year to stay at the forefront of AI development, propping up a precarious market with free-flowing venture capital cash. As major AI companies hemorrhage money (market leader OpenAI expects to lose $5 billion this year alone), Maine would only be hurting itself by banking on its continued success.

Furthermore, Maine has experienced a slow decline in its labor force since before the COVID-19 pandemic, as the population ages and young people both look elsewhere for opportunities and delay starting their careers entirely. If Maine focuses on expanding opportunities in AI development, it may exacerbate its struggles with employment by further “hollowing out” the labor market.

In other words, Maine would be creating low-wage service jobs and high-wage tech jobs without increasing opportunities for middle class work.

Relatedly, Maine’s labor market in the 1980s was dominated by manufacturing. By 2013, however, Maine had already lost half of those manufacturing jobs. Nowadays, nearly one-quarter of Maine’s workers face significant AI-related job changes. As increasingly complex AI is slated to produce much worse worker displacement and inequality than ever before, including for the college graduates and professionals Maine businesses seek to attract, how can Maine justify “leading” in the AI space?

In addition, attempting to lead in this field risks worsening the state’s “Portland gap.” By emphasizing Portland’s role as a tech hub in lieu of creating opportunities for rural areas, the disparity in economic growth between Greater Portland and the rest of the state will only grow while simultaneously placing increasing burdens on Maine’s natural resources, namely the state’s electricity and water supplies.

If Maine’s legislators, businesses and residents hope to secure a sustainable future for the next generation of Mainers, we cannot rely on AI investment to get us there. Prosperity for all Mainers means aggressive regulation of generative AI coupled with support for Maine’s workforce and investing in real opportunities for the entire state, not chasing “the next big thing.”

I urge Maine’s legislators, businesses and workers to seriously consider the harms of being AI “leaders” before they find themselves underwater.