OPINION:
Democrats have come out of the woodwork in recent days — since privately meeting with former President Barack Obama, coincidentally enough — and called for clear regulations, a clear plan, a clear path to contain the dangers of artificial intelligence. Well and good. Fine and dandy. And AI can indeed bring dangers upon humanity.
Just not in the way Democrats mean.
Democrats look at AI through the prism of how it might threaten their political power — and they panic because the idea of losing control means they might have to serve the people, rather than rule over the people.
Democrats fear how the private sector might develop technology that surpasses what the government knows; they worry about how those in the civilian workforce, that is, those outside the purview of public controls, might use their own individual brains and talents and resources to develop and produce something they don’t fully understand and that hasn’t been blasted with taxes and that isn’t subjected to their own personal and personally selected elites’ oversight.
Democrats loved Elon Musk — until he opened up Twitter by turning it into X.
Democrats love freedom — until they can’t control the exercising of the freedom.
So now, just in time for the midterms — this: “Obama privately sounds alarm on ‘dangerous’ AI, urges Democrats to put issue at center of agenda,” Fox News wrote in a headline a couple of days ago.
“Barack Obama Says Democratic Party Needs To Establish A Clear Framework For AI,” AfroTech wrote a couple of days ago.
And like good little soldiers, Democrats, one by one, came forward to talk about the so-called dangers of AI and the need to “establish a clear framework” for its development and use.
“The frontier of artificial intelligence is advancing at an alarming speed,” former Vice President Kamala Harris said on X. “We must responsibly slow the pace of frontier AI development. A slowdown is critical in order to ensure AI serves the public interest.”
From Politico: “Hakeem Jeffries: Congress must act ‘immediately’ to rein in AI.”
From The Hill: “‘This is not an industry that can regulate itself,’ Rep. Pete Aguilar, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters in the U.S. Capitol. ‘We have the ability, and we should be regulating them and putting sensible guardrails to protect consumers while supporting an innovation economy.’”
President Trump, meanwhile, has come out hard against the Democrats’ latest messaging about AI, characterizing it as a Chicken Little hysteria and saying on his Truth Social that the only guardrail needed right now is “a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”
He also posted that his administration “has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things’ … and will continue to do so!”
He also added, “We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these [AI] companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.”
He has a point. A good one.
If America doesn’t win the war for technological dominance, the leading player on the global stage could very well be China. And like that — there goes freedom.
But there is a real danger that comes with AI — though it’s not one the Democrats care much about, or one that Republicans much talk about, yet it’s still the largest elephant in the room: the potential for America to turn into a police state.
The food of AI is data.
The necessity for AI advancement is data.
China tops in collecting that data because Communists don’t have to worry about a Constitution, or civil liberties, or the idea of preserving God-given liberties and rights.
The danger with AI comes at the collection point — that is, how to collect the necessary amount of data to keep America tops in technology, but without destroying the Constitution, individual privacies and the entire concept of individualism?
That’s the danger zone.
But that’s not what Democrats are talking about when they scream of the dangers of AI. They’re simply looking at the potential to gain political power through control of technology and are worried that if they don’t rush to regulate, the private sector will produce, produce, produce.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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