2 hours ago - Business
AI has a partisan divide
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
The AI safety debate is nuanced. Unfortunately, the politics of it are not.
The big picture: The partisan lines aren't perfectly drawn, but red tends to mean go and blue tends to mean stop.
- Part of this is just a natural byproduct of each party's traditional stands on government regulation of big business.
- Part is the personalities involved, particularly the Silicon Valley venture capitalists and tech execs who lined up hard behind Trump — either explicitly during the campaign or implicitly via subsequent donations to the inauguration or White House ballroom.
- As with most things Trump, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In this case, it's Democrats seeking to slam the brakes on AI harder than Dario at his most doomy.
Zoom in: All of this could prove to be a massive self-own by the AI industry and its investors. Short-term expediency at the expense of long-term pragmatism.
- There's been lots of talk about how AI is impacting the midterms — particularly as a reaction to data centers — but less on what happens afterwards.
- This isn't an argument that the AI industry in 2024 should have anticipated a blue wave in 2026, or even that one is necessarily coming, but more a reminder of why prior generations of tech execs tried to stay on the political sidelines as much as possible.
Behind the scenes: If Democrats do win big in November, it's possible that both parties will get further entrenched on AI policy — battling over product liability and antitrust law.
- It's also possible that some Republicans might view AI as an electoral problem, thus further eroding the industry's D.C. influence.
- And it's not just about how politicians treat AI. It's also about how voters view it, largely lining up with their respective tribes.
The bottom line: The future of the world — quite literally — shouldn't be decided from partisan bunkers.
