How Will Democrats' Midterm Sweep Affect AI?

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0:52Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is Heather West. She's the head of the geotechnology practice at Eurasia Group. Heather, thanks so much for joining me.

1:03Heather West: Oh, thank you for having me. Exciting times. I'm really looking forward to this conversation because it is everything AI related. In recent years, artificial intelligence has continued to be an emerging issue. But in this week's midterm elections, it ended up being a prominent factor. And I want to rattle off some stats here. An analysis conducted by The Washington Post in the months leading up to the midterms found that AI or data center policies were featured on the campaign websites in close to 40 % of congressional and gubernatorial races. And in an exit poll from NBC News, that found that AI and data centers were a crucial or major factor to 56 % of voters.

1:41So to start off the conversation, as the tech expert here, what are your takeaways from the midterm election results when it comes to AI?

1:49Heather West: Absolutely. Very happy to. I think, as you said, AI has been an emerging issue, but that's really a past tense now, right? At the end of the day, AI was top of the agenda for a lot of folks, at least rhetorically. I think there's some disagreement about how important it was in terms of actually driving votes, although certainly many people did raise it. And at the end of the day, that matters. At the end of the day, how people are thinking about what they need and how they think about these issues has changed. And there are a lot of pieces that go into that. AI as a technology is something that we're all thinking about how it impacts our lives, how it impacts our jobs, how it impacts the future.

2:31Heather West: But also talking even more than AI, I think, in this campaign was around data centers, right? What are the very concrete examples of AI and technology and companies and corporate power. And so these have seemed actually very new and novel to me in terms of that focus. It's been a long time since technology was front and center in an election. To your point about data centers, seems like most people don't like them. I mean, the public sentiment surrounding data centers is largely negative. The majority of Americans in the 70 something percent don't want data centers in their community. Most Americans polling has somewhat of two thirds of all Americans don't want data centers nationally.

3:20Does that surprise you? And what does that mean for policy going forward?

3:25Heather West: Yeah, I'm not sure that it necessarily surprises me. This is a sentiment that has really been growing over time. And realistically, the technology sector has had growing what we call tech lash over years. But it has really come to a head, certainly that negative sentiment among voters, that 70 % number that you mentioned, has grown quickly. And really, I think that one of the things that that means is just, you know, it's driving, again, this very concrete example of technology in your backyard. And so the data center conversation has really taken off. And And it has been both surprising and not surprising at the same time.

4:07Heather West: You know, if you go, if you look at a data center, they're not the prettiest buildings. You're not sure what's going on inside. There's some concerns around some of those impacts. And I'm not going to say that they're not, you know, interesting or valid. But I do think that sometimes the rhetoric has outpaced some of the data, both for AI and data centers. Like you said, AI is an issue that is front and center. And we saw that just a few months ago when a whistleblower who resigned from a frontier company said that there is a chance, small chance, but still a chance that the technology could kill us all.

4:41And ever since then, I've had conversations with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. And Republicans and Democrats alike expressed an appetite to me that they were willing to implement guardrails when it came to AI. Democrats, though, it seems, have generally pushed for stricter regulations than Republicans have in the past. Now, as we know, because of the midterms, Democrats will control the House and the Senate. What do you think AI policy could look like starting January?

5:09Heather West: So I think that's the question that everyone should be asking, particularly if you're interested in the future of AI. You know, there, as you said, there's interest on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats. And that should mean that we would see AI regulation emerge quickly. And to some extent, that is true. But I think within a very narrow scope, we see bipartisan agreement on how to, approach AI in a number of places, but they're relatively narrow. And the big picture kind of AI safety rules or regulations that you referenced from this summer are going to be much more complicated.

5:41Heather West: And you have one side where the Republicans over the last year or two have been very interested in deregulation and encouraging innovation. And Democrats have been more concerned with safety, but don't necessarily have the detailed plan about how they want to go about it. But there's examples in California or New York. And so, like, as Democrats decide how to approach this and write what will be a much more concrete policy framework and legislative proposals, I think that they're going to be looking to some of those examples from states, some of those examples from the past Congress, particularly from Democrats.

6:16Heather West: But those big picture ideas around safety or comprehensive AI regulation, it's going to take some time and take some time to get rights.

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7:04Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week. To that point, what would that look like? Because AI has been compared to the Wild West. As the expert, do you think it is? And what do you think is the best step forward before this gets too politicized and nothing could get accomplished?

7:32Heather West: I think in some ways it is absolutely accurate to say there aren't a lot of AI laws on the books. That's increasingly changing at the state level. There are a lot of individual state AI laws on the books. But I do think that if you rewind over the last few months, part of the conversation has been reminding folks that existing laws do apply to AI. And so all of these laws that don't reference AI, but they reference an outcome or a process or a task, something that you are doing, they certainly apply to AI. And so it's not quite Wild West. I think if you sat down and talked to the companies who are building or using AI, they could give you a litany of things that they have to comply with.

8:09Heather West: But on the other hand, it's also incredibly accurate and concerning to some people that we don't have AI-specific considerations, with the point that this is a new emerging technology that is a little bit different than things we've seen before. To that point, then, what is your biggest question that remains to be seen on what's next when it comes to AI policy? Because there is so much that is uncertain. Yes. No, I think that the biggest question for me, certainly in the near term, is to watch the incoming Democratic Congress, the House and the Senate. I think you can break the Democratic Party for the purposes of this Congress into three parts.

8:47Heather West: We have kind of the established centrists. A lot of those have been in the committees and on Congress and on the Hill for some time. They've probably been thinking about legislation. They've been thinking about, you know, frameworks and policy in a very concrete way, even though they haven't had a way to advance it. And then you've got this progressive left who has had very strong opinions about AI, but they're a little bit blunter. And then you have folks who surprised folks and flipped red seats who are going to come at this from a very centrist perspective, almost certainly. and you're going to watch the diet.

9:23Heather West: I'm waiting to see what the dynamics between those three camps are. Our expectation is that the Democrats will start from kind of existing frameworks. And so you can look at some of the proposals over the last year or two, some of those state proposals. But the back and forth between those three camps and where they land, who sets boundaries, who sets the baseline, will be incredibly interesting to see over the next six months. I have a lot of political conversations in this chair, and I'm always interested to see what types of conversations just move past social media or move past experts and have the general population really talking, regardless of what you do for work, regardless of your age.

10:04And AI seems to be like one of those topics. I've talked to every generation, every background in my personal life about AI. And they've always asked me, hey, is this going to steal my job? Could this kill us? Are you excited for it? And I'm always trying to find the answers because a lot of people have conflicting feelings about them. A lot of people have negative feelings about them as well. I mean, 57 % of people in a recent poll said AI is bad for society. I mean, that's not good for big tech. Do you think these negative or apprehensive feelings surrounding AI, do you think that's going to do anything to the AI boom in the next two years, especially knowing that now Democrats control the House and the Senate?

10:44Heather West: Certainly. I think I think that the sentiment right now is really important and the AI kind of walked into the tech clash and and sentiment that far predates generative AI and some of these concerns. but it has magnified them, right? And even if we can look at that data around job losses and workforce impact and say that we're not seeing the huge impact that people are worried about, it doesn't matter. People are scared of it. People are worried about it. And that's going to impact how their representatives in Congress, how their state and local representatives think about these issues. If you look at, I think the local ballot issues on data centers were incredibly interesting.

11:24Heather West: The last time I looked, we had almost 40 valid initiatives that had resolved to restrict data centers in one way or another, and some more restrictive than others. And then one that had passed to approve additional data center work in some way, shape, or form. And that's kind of resounding. That's across the country. That's in data center hubs like Ohio. That's in places that aren't data center hubs. And so that's the kind of thing that if you're an AI developer, if you're working to put data centers on the map or into production, that's something you need to be thinking about and stepping back and saying, wait a second, I'm really excited about what I'm doing.

12:05Heather West: I think that what I'm doing is good for the world. Why doesn't everybody else? It seemed like this election and the results that came from it were in part a wholesale referendum on President Trump and a rejection of his policy and everything that he's done in the past two years. I'm curious if you think it's a rejection in part on his stance on AI because he's downplayed safety concerns. He said he wants to win the AI space race. He says whoever wins AI wins. He said our guardrail when it comes to AI is the DOJ. Do you think this election in part was a rejection of President Trump's stance when it comes to AI?

12:45And you think lawmakers will see that and act accordingly?

12:50Heather West: I don't know that it was exactly a rejection of his stance on AI, but it's pretty clear that he didn't win hearts and minds with it either. And so at the end of the day, you know, looking at this and saying, oh, I need the tech companies to move as fast as they can probably isn't a winning strategy. That doesn't seem to be appealing to most folks who, for whom kind of this international competition around AI is a very distant type of issue when they're looking at other things like affordability or corruption or immigration that, or wars that feel much more concrete. You know, that said, I do think that from the folks that I've talked to within political parties, within campaigns, within legislative purviews, they're definitely paying attention.

13:34Heather West: They know that this is something that they have to think about and do something concrete on because it's not going to be not in our face anytime soon. We're using AI all the time. I love my tools. They make my work easier and better. But I'm also thinking about what does this mean? Where's the regulation? And my suspicion is with a Democratic Congress, we will see a lot more proposals. Whether or not the White House is willing to support them is a different question. A lot of people feel that conflict because whenever you look at any polling surrounding AI, the sentiment is largely negative. People don't think it's great for society.

14:10People don't like data centers and anything in between. People are scared about it. Will it take my job? Will it kill us? But at the same time, a lot of people implement it in other ways, both professionally and personally, and they say, hey, this is making my job a lot easier. Hey, at home, it's making these more mundane tasks faster to do. And Democrats, like we've been talking about, they are going to control both chambers of Congress come January. I'm curious, where do you think when it comes to AI they should start on first policy-wise?

14:43Heather West: We'll start on oversight. I think that the various oversight leadership or likely leadership in both the Senate and the House have signaled very strongly to tech leadership and others that they should be ready for oversight and they should be ready for hearings. But I do think that there are also a few easy wins. If you're the Democrats coming in and you are looking for ideas to make it clear that you are here and ready to work, you're going to look for some of those places where there's already agreement and you generally have some bipartisan consensus already. I think that while the public isn't necessarily thinking about international AI competition, legislators are.

15:25Heather West: And so some of the export controls that we've seen proposed do have reasonably broad bipartisan agreement. I think child safety is a hard one to ever disagree with, right? Can we put rules in place to protect kids using these platforms? And then, you know, there's rate payer protection, which directly addresses some of the affordability questions that folks have been linking with AI and data centers. And all three of those could see movement sooner rather than later. My last question to you is AI is part of every conversation. It is part of every faction of life now. I'm curious to you, what do you think is missing from the national conversation as we sit here two days out from the midterms when it comes to AI?

16:10Heather West: Oh, when it comes to AI, I think that one of the pieces that makes, that confuses a lot of folks and actually would give people a lot of comfort is a little bit of certainty around some of the responsibility across the sector. And this is something that the FTC is investigating right now around loss of control incidents, for example, the hugging face incidents where an AI swarm hacked them. You know, but there's one of the gaps, I think, in AI law has been the idea of accountability and responsibility. If an agent does something who's responsible, is it the developer? Is it the user? Is it the implementer?

16:49Heather West: And so that's probably one of the least immediately understandable places for AI policy, but one of the most impactful in terms of helping folks understand and feel comfortable with some of these tools. Heather, I really appreciate your expertise here, you diving into what this moment means for artificial intelligence. Thank you so much for lending your expertise here, and you are welcome back anytime. Thank you very much. I'd love to come back. We'll talk about it more.

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