'I'm going to get in trouble!' Trump-backed candidate squirms over data centers on CNN

Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton squirmed on CNN as he was asked about the contentious issue of data centers.

During a Thursday appearance, the Trump-endorsed Hilton was interviewed by CNN's Kaitlan Collins about his stance on data centers. Collins noted that Hilton has said he considers data centers "essential" before asking him if there should be federal guidelines.

"No, I think we got far too many federal guidelines, and policies, and regulations on everything," Hilton said. "That's the genius of our country, that you can try different approaches."

He then began to argue that in California, "We're leading the AI revolution. All of this is generated from within our state, and I strongly support that. It's an iconic and important industry right now, basically keeping our budget afloat."

Hilton complained that his state has "made it so expensive to build anything, to run a business," even though AI data centers create jobs.

"The problem is that jobs that are associated with this leading AI revolution from California, they're all being created in other states, in Texas, in Arizona, Ohio, everywhere but here," he said.

During the interview, Hilton admitted, "I'm going to get in trouble" because of his views on AI. After promoting the AI revolution and the job potential from data centers, he walked back his enthusiasm for AI and cautioned that people could lose jobs to it.

"We just saw in San Francisco the very first instance anyone can think of a human being being fired entirely by AI in a store, in a retail store," he said. "I just think that's completely unacceptable. We can't have that kind of dehumanization of the workforce."

Hilton said, "I found myself in agreement with a union leader here in California and against the Chamber of Commerce" on the issue of losing jobs to AI. "We want to lead the technology and AI revolution, but we can't be led by it."