What happens when the world's biggest fast-food chain hands its menu prices to an algorithm? And who pays when Big Tech needs more power, more water, and more land to keep the AI arms race going? This week, Ryan and Shireen look at two sides of the same problem: powerful companies using AI to take more from ordinary people, and pushing the costs onto communities that never got a say.

They start with Clarkson's new lawsuit against McDonald's. The suit alleges that corporate required franchisees to follow an AI pricing tool built around customers' "willingness to pay," and that this cut out real competition among locations that are supposed to compete. Then they turn to the growing backlash against AI data centers: the noise, the vibrations, the strain on water and power, and the falling home values. They also look at why communities are so often the last to know.

In this episode:

• The McDonald's case. The lawsuit alleges that McDonald's pressured independent franchisees to follow algorithmic pricing as a condition of keeping their franchises, contributing to price increases well beyond inflation since 2019. The claims are brought under federal and state antitrust and consumer protection law.
• "Charity first"? Ryan and Shireen weigh McDonald's argument that the pricing tool helps some customers, and the privacy questions raised by tracking what people buy and where they buy it.
• The data center boom. They cover thousands of data centers already operating and more under construction or planned, the local fights over zoning and land use, and the lawsuits over xAI's Colossus facilities near Memphis.
• Who carries the cost. They ask why there's no requirement for tech companies to pay for costs associated with the infrastructure they demand, why the burden falls on some communities and not others, and why the backlash crosses party lines.
• The case for transparency. Communities should know the jobs, the risks, and the real trade-offs before a facility goes up, not after.
• Rose, Bud, Thorn. They talk about the Bryson Fire evacuation in Malibu and the fast response from firefighters, and Ryan shares a tribute to a childhood friend and a reminder to stay present with the people who matter.

Everybody wants clean air, clean water, and affordable utility bills, whatever their politics. When companies treat communities as an afterthought, those communities push back, and the reckoning is only getting started.

This podcast is not legal advice.

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Welcome to Represent More, with Ryan and Shireen Clarkson of Clarkson Law Firm.

This week, Ryan is back from speaking at NYU's global class actions conference, where a panel meant to cover data privacy quickly turned into a conversation about AI. Shireen opens the episode with a hard question: if we could delete AI and go back to a world without it, would we? The answer leads into a closer look at the White House's newly announced AI agreement. The leading frontier labs signed on to the four-point framework, and it was presented as "morally binding." It has no enforcement mechanism, no penalties, and no "or else." Ryan and Shireen go through it line by line and ask what real accountability for AI harms would require, including whether executives should face criminal liability when their products cause harm.

Then the conversation turns to food. California Governor Newsom recently signed a bill creating a state-certified "non-ultra-processed" seal for food products. Ryan and Shireen consider whether it will actually help consumers make healthier choices, or whether it could become another label that companies learn to game, one that leaves shoppers confused and makes deceptive marketing harder to challenge in court.

In this episode:

• Would you delete AI? Ryan and Shireen weigh AI's promised benefits against the harms we're already seeing, from intellectual atrophy to chatbots allegedly linked to teen suicides.
• Who's deciding our future? Ryan questions why a small group of tech leaders with narrow expertise should shape how society works.
• The "morally binding" pact. The hosts break down the agreement's four commitments: internal controls, internal oversight, independent external audits, and board oversight. They also look at what the agreement leaves out.
• Where's the "or else"? Why voluntary self-regulation fails without civil and criminal penalties.
• Politics and the AI economy. How stock market dependence on AI growth, along with tech money in politics, may be slowing meaningful regulation at both the state and federal level.
• California's non-ultra-processed food seal. What the new certification covers, what it may miss, and why it won't take effect until 2029.
• The trouble with "organic." Shireen explains how government-certified labels can create a misleading overall impression, and how federal preemption limits consumers' ability to challenge them.
• Roses. A proud parent moment at a school assembly offers some hope at the end of a heavy week.

Promises aren't protections. If the most powerful companies in the world can write their own rules and face no consequences for breaking them, then the rules don't exist. Real accountability means specific obligations, real enforcement, and lawmakers willing to act for the people they serve.

Follow Represent More on Substack: https://representmore.substack.com