MIT professor says AI risks are uniting Bernie Sanders, Steve

It’s a strange day in Washington when Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon agree on anything, let alone sit in the same room to talk about the future of humanity. But that’s exactly what happened at a recent conference focused on AI risk, and the meeting of those two very different minds tells you more about the current moment than any policy paper could. When the far left and the populist right are both worried about the same technology, the rest of us should probably stop scrolling and start paying attention.

What’s interesting is that this is a rare instance where the worry is actually aimed at something real. Big Tech has spent a decade consolidating power, silencing conservative voices, and pushing a woke corporate agenda while claiming to be neutral. Now we’re supposed to trust those same executives with unchecked artificial intelligence. The Biden administration rushed out an executive order that was big on rhetoric and short on clarity, and the left’s instinct to regulate everything with a government agency isn’t exactly reassuring either. The machines aren't the only ones with a bias problem.

But for the America First crowd, this should be a moment of opportunity, not just alarm. If we’re serious about putting our own country first, then we need to make sure the most powerful tool of the century is built to serve Americans, not replace them. That means keeping a sharp eye on how AI is used to manipulate markets, displace workers, and police speech. A bipartisan meeting isn't a solution, but it's a start. We’d rather see our leaders fight to keep American innovation on our soil than bow to globalist pressure to slow down progress that isn't theirs to manage.

Tegmark calls this a breakthrough, and maybe he's right. But history suggests that when Washington gets scared about a new technology, the result is usually a mess of red tape that hurts the little guy and enriches the big guy. That’s the pattern. We’ll be watching to see if this new concern produces anything other than more power grabs from the administrative state. Trusting the government to fix AI is like trusting a fox to watch the henhouse. The only difference is this time, the fox has a supercomputer.