LEXINGTON, Ky. — No AI in KY, a Lexington grassroots coalition opposed to data centers, said in a press release that it will hold a press conference Tuesday, October 20, at 3:30 p.m. outside the Government Center at 200 E. Main St. The event is part of Irreplaceable's national walkout over the dangers of artificial intelligence.

The coalition said it formed shortly after the Urban County Council passed Lexington's first data center moratorium on June 9, 2026. Since then, the group said, its members have attended council meetings, planning commission sessions and community events to make clear that AI data centers are unwelcome in Fayette County. At the press conference, members and residents plan to describe how AI is affecting their lives, work and plans for the future, the release said.

The release listed several harms it attributed to AI, including environmental strain from the infrastructure needed to run and train AI systems, rogue AI agents, what it called AI psychosis, and cognitive decline among regular users. It presented these as the coalition's assertions and did not cite studies supporting them.

Emily Keaton Isaacs, a No AI in KY member and co-director of the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition, said in the release, "Our communities don't consent to AI being shoved into every aspect of our lives." She added that the technology depends on what the release called the largest theft of intellectual property and labor in human history.

The local fight over data centers has centered on the former Lexmark campus off New Circle Road, where Spectrum News reported that DartPoints, the Texas-based company that bought the property, described a site of 81,000 square feet with potential power of up to 70 megawatts. On Thursday, Oct. 8, the council suspended its two-reading rule on a 10-1 vote and then voted 11-0 by roll call to extend the data center moratorium through Oct. 31, 2027. That vote is final: the city will not accept data center zone changes, development plans or permits until then.

The two motions the release refers to had first reading Oct. 8 and are docketed for second reading at the council's Thursday, Oct. 22 meeting at 6 p.m. One is Ordinance 0885-26, which removes "computer and data processing centers" as a permitted principal use in six zones (P-1, B-2B, B-4, P-2, CC and ED). At a special Committee of the Whole on Oct. 6, Council Member Tyler Morton amended the Planning Commission's text amendment to delete its proposed size, power and noise limits, leaving only that deletion. The other is Resolution 0886-26, which asks the Planning Commission to draft a separate zoning category for data centers. Council Member Emma Curtis moved Oct. 8 to suspend the rules and adopt both the same night; the motion on the ordinance fell short of the 10 votes required, 6-5 according to WKYT, and the motion on the resolution drew no second. Neither proposal itself failed. Planning staff told the Planning Commission on Oct. 15 that work on the new zone is unlikely to begin before the November election.

According to the release, the coalition's member organizations are Lexington Friends, Living Streets Lexington, Gathering for Democracy, Fight Toxic Prisons, Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition, KY Tenants, Bluegrass DSA and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.

Editor's note (Oct. 16, 2026): An earlier version of this article said reports differed on the status of the two council motions and cited a Spectrum News headline saying the council had approved size, power and noise limits. The limits were deleted before first reading, and the 6-5 vote and the motion that drew no second were procedural votes to skip a second reading, not votes on the proposals. The two paragraphs above were rewritten after a review of the Granicus meeting records and the Oct. 8 docket.