A fateful turning point for humanity and AI could redefine American politics

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If a terrorist threat led subject experts to warn of a near-term existential menace to humanity, the weight of the US government would mobilize in an immediate and limitless effort to save the day.

Yet a remarkable sequence of warnings by leaders of artificial intelligence firms that their creation may soon outpace humans’ capacity to control it has so far been met with a shrug by Republicans who run Washington.

President Donald Trump said Sunday that “negative forces” were conjuring up “things that won’t happen.” House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a call to pass emergency legislation, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper that AI executives “pushing the frontier” could slow down if they wanted, but Congress shouldn’t rush to act.

Both men also warned that slowing the US AI industry would hand the advantage in the superintelligence race to China — casting the debate less as one of safety and more as a national security question.

Republican inertia contrasts with growing warnings from key Democrats , including former president Barack Obama, that without a government-mandated brake on the technology, the world would cross a “dangerous” threshold.

The crescendo of concern — especially since it is coming from titans of the AI industry itself — feels like a political watershed moment.

AI has been an increasingly keen issue in the midterm elections. Candidates of both parties have tapped into public anger over AI infrastructure , calling for construction moratoriums on the vast, unsightly data centers that are ravenous for power and water.

But hostility toward AI is also evolving into a catchall that crystalizes a moment of public anger and anxiety on disparate issues.

While increasing numbers of Americans are using the technology, an NBC News poll this month found that 70% of respondents were more worried than excited by AI.

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AI is fueling fears of massive job losses at a moment when polls show a majority of citizens have lost confidence in the Trump economy . Higher utility bills , and the perception that data centers are to blame, are deepening the affordability crisis — the No. 1 issue this election season. Scary AI scenarios could solidify Americans’ worries over the power held by a few billionaire tech oligarchs who risk creating dangerous new societal tensions. And the possibility that China or other non-state actors could exploit AI advances to threaten the US do add up to a genuine national security conundrum with important political implications for years to come.

This swiftly evolving political environment may make AI an even more potent issue in the midterms and the 2028 presidential election. Democrats will hope to whip up the kind of political energy that could redefine races and push momentum for change, especially if they win back the House or Senate. Republicans, fearing a backlash to Trump’s second term, hardly need another issue where he seems indifferent to public perceptions.

AI politics erupted to a new level in the last week.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote on Saturday that the industry needed to be slowed down. In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, which is due to air in full Monday, he called on AI leaders to work together to keep the technology from harming humanity.

On Saturday, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, posted on X that he agreed with Amodei, and called for “independent evaluators” embedded in AI firms. Elon Musk, whose xAI company powers the chatbot Grok, wrote “Dario is right” on X. Google’s DeepMind chair Demis Hassabis added his voice to the chorus. All this followed a stunning warning by AI researcher Jacob Coxon that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Sharply different reactions to the extraordinary set of alarms reflect more than Washington’s polarization; they reveal a fractured consensus about whether AI indeed poses a threat to humanity.

Former AI researcher Jacob Coxon tells CNN’s Anderson Cooper why he quit Anthropic over fears that rapidly advancing AI could become impossible to control.

Critics worry computerized agents could become so powerful that they could conspire to destroy the world. Skeptics dismiss doom-laden cautions. They accuse tech moguls of hyping their own products. And fearmongering has accompanied technology breakthroughs since the Industrial Revolution.

There’s also an ideological angle to the controversy because of the Trump administration’s instinct for minimal regulation, which doesn’t distinguish between traditional industries and a far more powerful AI sector.

Trump also has strong personal and political incentives to oppose a slow-down.

The AI industry is a giant growth engine and he cannot afford for the bubble to burst and worsen his political standing. And his critics will wonder whether personal investments in the digital economy by administration officials will interfere with their capacity to fairly oversee the AI industry.

Lightning-fast breakthroughs in a sector that is complex and opaque means AI is not just emulating the historic pattern of new technology outpacing the capacity of governments to regulate. It’s not clear that leaders who’d be needed to act even fully understand its properties and possible threats.

And Trump makes a fair point when he warns that the US would be ceding a military edge to its superpower rival if it fell behind in AI. “We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way,” he told reporters Sunday.

Other administration officials warn against unilateral US disarmament in AI. Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said on “State of the Union” that the “far bigger risk” was that “a malevolent actor” with designs on bioweapons could use “an AI that is better than the one we have to protect us.”

Constraining AI for humanity’s benefit would take an international agreement. But this would require the kind of pooled sovereignty Trump disdains and contradict the administration’s principle that every aspect of America’s power must be deployed to strengthen unilateral dominance.

And would foreign authoritarians or non-state actors play by the new rules?

Still, autonomous computer agents wouldn’t only threaten democracies. They’d also challenge the core governing principle of China’s Communist Party — the use of state power to impose national stability. Trump is scheduled to have a Washington summit with President Xi Jinping this month, which both men could use to carve out a global leadership position.

But Trump’s attitude toward cataclysmic warnings of rampant AI suggests he’s done little philosophical soul-searching at a turning point for the human race. “I’m not downplaying, but, you know, it’s going to be more good than bad by a lot,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One Sunday.

“It’s going to be fine,” the president told GB News last week. “We’ll always have something to stop them. We’ll have a little gear. Boom.”

Trump’s blasé approach recalls his cavalier response to Covid-19 — which thwarted his political and economic priorities. He once suggested that the country would have fewer confirmed cases of the virus if it simply stopped testing.

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A laissez-faire attitude defines his administration. David Sacks, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, wrote on X Saturday that AI leaders should take responsibility for their industry. “Stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission.”

Still, there’s significant bipartisan concern. Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz said that “we need substantially more regulation when it comes to AI,” in an interview with Politico last week. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a bill to permanently ban superintelligent AI and temporarily pause advanced AI development pending federal regulation. Sen. Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, last week launched a probe into OpenAI over a rogue attack by its AI agents on another firm, Hugging Face, in July.

But senior Democrats are pushing for a much faster government response as they position for November’s midterms.

Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries said on ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday that Congress should take “decisive action” to slow down AI development and pledged that Democrats would meet to agree to a plan this week.

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego warned: “When we created a nuclear weapon, the nuclear weapon did not have the decisionmaking power to drop a nuclear weapon. AI has the capability and will have the capability to make decisions like that.”

“This is more akin to Dr. Frankenstein telling us, ‘The monster is loose, help me stop the monster,’” the Arizona lawmaker said on “State of the Union.”

Some AI experts believe such scenarios overstate the capacity of AI. But that may not matter from a political perspective if public anxiety grows.

Trump may not like it, but this question now seems critical to the midterms and American politics more generally: Who controls AI — humanity or machines?

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如果恐怖主义威胁导致相关领域的专家警告说，人类在不久的将来将面临生存危机，那么美国政府将立即调动一切力量，不遗余力地拯救世界。

然而，人工智能公司领导人发出的一系列令人瞩目的警告——他们创造的人工智能可能很快就会超过人类控制它的能力——迄今为止却被掌控华盛顿的共和党人轻描淡写地忽略了。

唐纳德·特朗普总统周日表示，“负面势力”正在炮制“不会发生的事情”。众议院议长迈克·约翰逊拒绝了通过紧急立法的呼吁，他告诉CNN的杰克·塔珀，人工智能高管们“正在开拓前沿”，如果他们愿意，可以放慢脚步，但国会不应该仓促采取行动。

两人还警告说，放缓美国人工智能产业的发展将使中国在超级智能竞赛中占据优势——这使得这场辩论与其说是安全问题，不如说是国家安全问题。

共和党的惰性与包括前总统巴拉克·奥巴马在内的重要民主党人日益增长的警告形成鲜明对比，他们认为，如果没有政府强制限制这项技术，世界将跨越一个“危险的”门槛。

这种日益高涨的担忧——尤其因为它来自人工智能行业的巨头们——感觉像是一个政治分水岭时刻。

人工智能已成为中期选举中日益热门的议题。两党候选人都利用了公众对人工智能基础设施的愤怒情绪，呼吁暂停建设那些耗电量和耗水量巨大、有碍观瞻的数据中心。

但对人工智能的敌意也正在演变成一种包罗万象的情绪，它集中体现了公众对各种不同问题的愤怒和焦虑。

虽然越来越多的美国人正在使用这项技术，但本月NBC新闻的一项民意调查发现，70%的受访者对人工智能更多的是担忧而不是兴奋。

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人工智能加剧了人们对大规模失业的担忧，而民调显示，大多数民众已对特朗普的经济政策失去信心。不断上涨的公共事业账单，以及人们普遍认为数据中心是罪魁祸首的看法，正在加剧民众的负担能力危机——这也是本次大选季的首要议题。人工智能带来的种种可怕后果，可能会加深美国民众对少数亿万富翁科技寡头权力过大的担忧，他们有可能制造出新的社会紧张局势。此外，中国或其他非国家行为体可能利用人工智能技术威胁美国，这确实构成了一个真正的国家安全难题，并将在未来数年产生重要的政治影响。

这种快速变化的政治环境可能会使人工智能在中期选举和2028年总统大选中成为一个更加重要的议题。民主党人希望能够激发出足以重塑选情、推动变革的政治能量，尤其是在他们重新夺回众议院或参议院控制权的情况下。共和党人担心特朗普的第二个任期会引发反弹，他们实在不希望再增加一个特朗普似乎对公众舆论漠不关心的议题。

上周，人工智能政治局势升级到了一个新的高度。

Anthropic公司首席执行官达里奥·阿莫迪（Dario Amodei）周六撰文指出，人工智能行业的发展速度需要放缓。在接受CNN安德森·库珀（Anderson Cooper）的独家专访时（完整版将于周一播出），他呼吁人工智能领域的领军人物携手合作，防止这项技术对人类造成危害。

周六，OpenAI首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼在X论坛上发帖表示，他同意达里奥·阿莫迪的观点，并呼吁在人工智能公司内部设立“独立评估员”。埃隆·马斯克旗下的xAI公司（旗下拥有聊天机器人Grok）也在X论坛上写道：“达里奥说得对。”谷歌DeepMind董事长德米斯·哈萨比斯也加入了声援行列。此前，人工智能研究员雅各布·考克森曾发出令人震惊的警告：“人工智能的开发者们真心相信，到本十年末，人工智能可能会毁灭我们所有人。”

各方对这一系列非同寻常的警报反应截然不同，这不仅仅反映了华盛顿的极化；它们还揭示了人们对人工智能是否真的对人类构成威胁这一问题上存在分歧的共识。

前人工智能研究员雅各布·考克森向 CNN 的安德森·库珀讲述了他为何因担心快速发展的人工智能可能变得无法控制而离开 Anthropic 公司。

批评人士担心，计算机化的智能体可能会变得过于强大，甚至密谋毁灭世界。怀疑论者则对这些危言耸听的警告不屑一顾，指责科技巨头夸大其词。自工业革命以来，恐慌情绪就一直伴随着技术的突破。

这场争议也带有意识形态色彩，因为特朗普政府奉行最低限度的监管，没有区分传统行业和实力强大的人工智能行业。

特朗普也有强烈的个人和政治动机反对经济放缓。

人工智能产业是一个巨大的增长引擎，他承受不起泡沫破裂带来的政治后果，因为这会损害他的政治地位。批评者还会质疑，政府官员在数字经济领域的个人投资是否会影响他们公正监管人工智能产业的能力。

在人工智能这个复杂且不透明的领域，其闪电般的突破意味着它不仅仅是重蹈覆辙，延续了新技术发展速度超过政府监管能力的历史模式。目前尚不清楚那些需要采取行动的领导者是否完全了解人工智能的特性及其潜在威胁。

特朗普的观点不无道理，他警告说，如果美国在人工智能领域落后于其超级大国对手，就会在军事上失去优势。“我们在人工智能领域领先于中国。我们是世界上最先进的国家，坦白说，我希望保持这种状态，”他周日对记者说。

其他政府官员警告称，美国不应单方面放弃人工智能。国家经济委员会主任凯文·哈塞特在“国情咨文”节目中表示，“更大的风险”在于，心怀生物武器阴谋的“恶意行为者”可能会利用“比我们现有的人工智能更先进的人工智能来保护我们”。

为了人类的福祉而限制人工智能的发展需要达成国际协议。但这需要特朗普所鄙视的那种主权共享，也与本届政府的原则相悖，即美国的一切力量都必须用于加强单边霸权。

那么，外国独裁政权或非国家行为体会遵守新规则吗？

然而，自主计算机代理不仅会威胁民主国家，还会挑战中国共产党的核心执政原则——运用国家力量维护国家稳定。特朗普计划本月与习近平主席在华盛顿举行峰会，两人都可能借此机会确立其全球领导地位。

但特朗普对人工智能泛滥带来的灾难性警告的态度表明，在这个人类历史的转折点上，他几乎没有进行过任何深刻的哲学反思。“我不是在轻描淡写，但是，你知道，它带来的好处远远大于坏处，”特朗普周日在空军一号上对记者说。

“一切都会好起来的，”总统上周告诉GB新闻。“我们总会有办法阻止他们。我们会有个小手段。砰！”

特朗普这种漫不经心的态度让人想起他对新冠疫情的轻率应对——这场疫情阻碍了他的政治和经济目标。他曾暗示，如果停止检测，美国的病毒确诊病例就会减少。

吉姆·沃森/法新社/盖蒂图片社

他的政府奉行自由放任的态度。总统科技顾问委员会联合主席大卫·萨克斯周六在X网站上撰文指出，人工智能领域的领导者应该对他们的行业负责。“别再假装需要得到任何人的许可了。”

尽管如此，两党都对此表示严重担忧。德克萨斯州共和党参议员特德·克鲁兹上周在接受Politico采访时表示，“我们需要对人工智能进行更严格的监管”。佛蒙特州独立参议员伯尼·桑德斯提出一项法案，旨在永久禁止超级智能人工智能，并在联邦监管出台之前暂时中止高级人工智能的研发。密苏里州共和党参议员乔什·霍利上周对OpenAI展开调查，原因是其人工智能代理在7月份对另一家公司Hugging Face发起了一次恶意攻击。

但随着11月中期选举的临近，民主党高层人士正在推动政府采取更快的应对措施。

民主党众议院领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯周日在ABC新闻的“本周”节目中表示，国会应该采取“果断行动”来减缓人工智能的发展，并承诺民主党人将在本周开会商定一项计划。

民主党参议员鲁本·加列戈警告说：“我们制造核武器时，核武器本身并不具备投放核武器的决策能力。而人工智能现在具备，将来也必将具备做出此类决策的能力。”

“这更像是弗兰肯斯坦博士告诉我们，‘怪物逃脱了，帮我阻止怪物，’”这位亚利桑那州议员在“国情咨文”节目中说道。

一些人工智能专家认为，这类设想夸大了人工智能的能力。但如果公众的焦虑情绪加剧，从政治角度来看，这可能并不重要。

特朗普可能不喜欢这个问题，但现在看来，这个问题对于中期选举和更广泛的美国政治都至关重要：谁控制人工智能——人类还是机器？