Compute is becoming the fifth utility.
AI did not create our dependence on computing. It revealed it.
The Fifth Utility is a podcast series that asks a simple question: before computing becomes as essential as water, electricity, gas, and telecommunications, how do we govern it before it governs us?
Why this Podcast exists
Most conversations about AI begin with the technology: what it can do, how quickly it will improve and who will benefit from it. The Fifth Utility begins somewhere else—with the communities being asked to supply its land, power, water and permission. This series grew from an actual municipal decision about a hyperscale data center. That experience revealed a much larger question. If compute is becoming infrastructure that modern life cannot function without, who will establish the terms of our dependence on it?
The Fifth Utility is not an argument for or against AI. It is an inquiry into leverage, public purpose and human agency—conducted while communities still have meaningful choices to make. People are not rejecting buildings. They are resisting being made dependent on a system whose rules they did not help write.
“The Cloud has an address. While the compute industry needs a physical location, people living at that address have a voice.”
Explore the Series
Episode 01
Are We Having The Same Conversation?
Why infrastructure debates are only the tip of the iceberg. Solving for X isn’t productive if people are concerned about Y.
Episode 02
A Regional Problem Without a Regional Plan.
Building out a civilization level infrastructure should not happen piecemeal. Currently the compute industry is getting built one municipal deal at a time. Part 1 of 3
Guest: Kyle Schulz – Chicagoland Metropolitan Agency for Planning
Episode 03
A Regional Problem Without a Regional Plan
Power, water, land, fiber and tax policy cross municipal borders—even when the decisions governing them do not. Part 2 of 3
Guest: Kyle Schulz – Chicagoland Metropolitan Agency for Planning
Episode 04
A Regional Problem Without a Regional Plan
What , if anything, is the State and Federal governing bodies to coordinate the compute infrastructure buildout? Part 3 of 3
Guest: Kyle Schulz – Chicagoland Metropolitan Agency for Planning
Episode 05
Who Governs The Fifth Utility?
If meaningful participation in modern life requires compute, individual consent and the ability to “opt out” are no longer enough. What rights, limits and governing structures must come next?
Guest: Hugh O’Hara – Will County Governmental League
Episode 06
Education in a world of Artificial Intelligence.
The 20th century higher education model of teaching specialization is being challenged. What skills can be taught that allow students to leave school and make a living?
Guest: Kip Kline – Lewis University