Here's the Scoop, Election Edition: The AI Backlash Hits the Ballot Box

0:00Hey, Nightly News listeners, we have something a little different for you today. You're about to hear a special election edition of our NBC News podcast. Here's the scoop. In this episode, Chief White House correspondent Garrett Haake sits down with experts to break down the key issues shaping the upcoming midterms. Take a listen. Some election issues are evergreen, while others seem to spring out of nowhere and take over the conversation. Tech billionaires spending millions of dollars to push the narrative that this technology is inevitable are not your constituents. We don't want data centers.

0:41We don't want unregulated AI. Welcome to Here's the Scoop Election Edition. I'm Garrett Haake. Every Saturday this fall, leading up to the midterms, I've been talking with the smartest voices to discuss the top issues, the places, and the players that could ultimately decide control in Washington. Last week, we dove into why Iowa has become a political battleground once again. And this week, we're talking about the politics of AI. AI chatbots, data centers, autonomous agents. Just a few years ago, most of those things were not top of mind for American voters. But artificial intelligence has been lightning fast, both as a transformative technology and as a divisive economic and social issue.

1:28President Trump has vowed to take a hands-off approach to AI development and regulation, saying it's essential for the U.S. to stay competitive. Whoever wins AI, you have to remember this. And now I say, whoever wins SI, whoever wins superintelligent, wins. But an unlikely bipartisan alliance of politicians has been pumping the brakes, urging more regulation of AI models, pauses on data center construction and just plain caution. Left to itself, artificial intelligence will not choose moral liberty. It will choose the passions. It will choose appetite. It will gather power into the fewest hands the world has ever seen and call the result progress.

2:14Chris Murphy: When the future of humanity is at stake, we need binding international safety rules, not voluntary standards from the industry. We have to put some guardrails, some safety measures in place to ensure that AI doesn't run away. But at the same time, we've got to make sure that we don't lose our edge with China because that would be a national security threat. And at this fractured moment in American politics, concern about AI is one area where Americans actually seem to agree. In an NBC News poll from September, 70 % of adults said they're more worried about AI than excited about it. And about two-thirds of Americans say AI poses risks for society and that they don't want to have AI data centers built where they live.

3:04So this week, I'm talking to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who's been pushing for more AI regulation and a more responsible approach to technology in Washington. I'll also debrief with one of NBC's top reporters covering AI about how the technology and the backlash to it are shaping the midterms and what campaigning and governing in the age of AI could look like. That's all ahead on Here's the Scoop Election Edition. Stay with us.

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5:04Welcome back to Here's the Scoop Election Edition. I'm Garrett Haake. Connecticut's Democratic Senator Chris Murphy has become one of the most outspoken members of Congress when it comes to regulating AI. He recently sponsored a bipartisan bill with Republican Senator Josh Hawley to create civil and criminal liability for AI companies if their AI agents go rogue. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he has a rare perspective on the AI race with China and how worried or not we should be about it. And as a dad to teenagers, he's voiced concerns about the societal and privacy impact of AI, especially of so-called AI friends.

5:42And as an in-demand campaign surrogate for other Democratic candidates this fall, he's been to the front lines of the debate over data centers sweeping the nation. All that means we have a lot to discuss. Chris Murphy, thanks for being here.

5:55Chris Murphy: Yeah, awesome to be with you. Thanks for having me. I think a lot of people were kind of jolted into this AI debate back in September when we saw that post from a former Anthropic employee basically saying that they were concerned that if left unattended, this technology could like destroy the world. Other AI companies jumped in and said, yeah, we agree. And they really weren't being regulated. You posted a video about it on X and you wrote, the bottom line is we are cooked as an economy and a culture if we leave it to the industry to protect us. They won't and they can't. Explain why you feel that way and who should be regulating AI.

6:36Chris Murphy: So I think that AI, in particular, this coming generation of AI that is going to essentially, you know, be super genius level intelligence is fundamentally different than any other technology that man has ever created. It's not just another version of the printing press. It is something brand new and it's an existential threat. But it is true that we have had other potentially life-destroying inventions in the last 100 years. Nuclear energy, for example, advanced medicines. And very quickly, we decided that we were going to regulate those new technologies. We were going to accept the benefit of nuclear energy, but we were going to protect ourselves from the potential existential downside on advanced medicines.

7:30Chris Murphy: We said, boy, if we don't regulate these things, they could kill us at scale. So let's get the good side of medicine and drug development and protect against the downside. That's possible with AI. There's this doomsday conversation, but only if we don't regulate it. I mean, I covered the Hill for a long time. I've been in all these hearings about social media, other technological issues. Some of your colleagues in the Senate and the House don't send their own emails or post to their own social media accounts. Is Congress up to this challenge? I don't buy that argument at all. Frankly, some of my colleagues make that argument.

8:09Chris Murphy: Oh, well, Congress isn't equipped to regulate AI. I mean, I also don't know how to create nuclear energy. I don't know how to perform a surgery. but I regulate the healthcare industry. I am in charge of making sure that we're safe from nuclear disaster. I mean, if members of Congress weren't allowed to regulate industries that they aren't experts in or industries in which they don't use the products, we wouldn't do anything. I mean, that's what a democracy is, is that you have citizens standing in learning as much as you can, relying on experts and making the best decisions that we can. So I just think that's bullshit.

8:46Chris Murphy: Like, yeah, there's a lot of my colleagues that are old, and they don't use social media. But that doesn't mean that we're not smart enough to figure out, with the help of experts, how to properly protect us from this technology. I mean, some of it doesn't require you to know anything about technology. Like, for instance, we shouldn't have deep fakes in our politics. We shouldn't have an uncertainty every single minute of every single day as to whether what you're seeing is robot-created or is actual human content. We could just make that decision today and you don't need any expertise to decide that we should ban deepfakes or watermark all AI-created content.

9:28But to your point, if it's all a choice, something like banning deepfakes in politics seems like it would be a layup for Congress to take on, and you haven't.

9:37Chris Murphy: Yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons for that. First of all, we just have broad gridlock when Republicans are in charge. I mean, we're not doing anything right now because the Trump administration and the Republican Congress is just a daily disaster of organization. We did a lot when Democrats were in charge, and it was a mistake for us not to add to a very long list of things we did, regulation of AI. But if Democrats win control of the House and the Senate, then we will. I mean, I can almost guarantee you we will pass legislation, at least beginning the work of regulating artificial intelligence.

10:14Chris Murphy: Now, part of the problem is there's a lot of money in these elections, a lot of AI industry money that is attempting to elect members of Congress who will do nothing. That's what Elon Musk's money is in these races to do, to try to elect members of Congress who won't regulate AI so that Musk and others can make as much money without guardrails as possible. What do you see as kind of the actual potential threats of unregulated AI versus what's sort of the science fiction threats? Yeah. I mean, I don't know that any of them, right, are science fiction threats any longer, but clearly for many people, the most acute threat is disintegration of jobs.

10:57Chris Murphy: And I think that's going to happen sooner rather than later. I think you will see the wholesale elimination of certain categories of jobs in the next five to 10 years. And as a parent of a kid who's going to college, I know the conversation that parents are having today. Like, what is my kid going to do? What should I send them to school to learn? Second is the disintegration of our politics. You're already seeing that with a lot of campaigns running these deep fake ads. It makes it a lot easier for outside players, foreign governments to be able to send fake information into our political ecosystem and just tear us apart.

11:37Chris Murphy: But I think the most significant downside is the spiritual impact of AI. Because what happens to us as human beings, if we start outsourcing our basic functionalities as humans, like creativity and friendship and conversation and problem solving to machines. Kids report that they rely on AI for friendship and advice on a daily basis. And I am not sure what's left of the human soul if machines start doing all of those things for us. We become very quickly a very spiritually empty, unhappy, and anxious nation. And that will play out in political, cultural, social chaos as well. So it is really an existential threat.

12:31Chris Murphy: But again, only if we choose to let it go without any hindrance or check. I think that sort of like humanist perspective on it is interesting. It sort of creates strange political bedfellows, right? I mean, I mentioned you and Josh Hawley working together on a bill on rogue AI agents. I don't think of you and Josh Hawley as aligned on a traditional political spectrum on much of anything. But can you talk a little bit about how these AI-related issues kind of have rearranged the political spectrum a little bit? Yeah, I think if you sort of listen to the conversation happening on the right, you will hear a lot of this worry about the spiritual cost of artificial intelligence replacing human functionality.

13:19Chris Murphy: Josh Hawley and I are working on that piece of legislation, but also a bill to effectively ban kids from having access to these chatbots. Maybe that's because we're both parents, but I think it's also because inside the Republican Party is a broad skepticism of technological elites. It kind of got buried once Trump came into office because he decided to just celebrate the tech elites, the folks who are running these companies. But inside that party, you know, there's always been skepticism of the folks that are running the big information technology companies. What do you make of the way that the president has handled this issue?

13:56I mean, his political radar, whatever you think of his policies, is usually pretty good, but he seems to have found himself almost alone on the 20 side of like an 80-20 issue, or I guess a 70-30 issue in our poll. I mean, 70 percent of Americans are distrustful of AI, say they're more concerned about it than excited about it. And he's kind of over there acting as the industry's biggest cheerleader. What do you attribute that to?

14:19Chris Murphy: Yes, he is very badly on the wrong side of this issue. And his embrace of data centers is probably going to be a really big issue once people show up to the polls. But he's blinded by his desire to hold power forever and these companies by funneling so much money into his political operations and supporting so many of his favorite political candidates, I think are causing him to not care or not see the enormous political downside. I feel like the AI debate more broadly has been kind of subsumed of late with discussion just about data centers specifically. You've been traveling all over the country.

14:56You've been watching, I think, how candidates are talking about this. Who do you think is addressing the idea of data centers in communities particularly well?

15:06Chris Murphy: I mean, Sherrod Brown, you know, has always been ahead of the curve. And Sherrod Brown was talking about the danger of these data centers and the danger of unregulated AI before anybody else was. You know, I saw Mayor Mondani give a speech yesterday or this week in which he talked, like I talk, about the spiritual impact of AI. And I do think that it's important to speak to people both about the jobs impact and the impact on human dignity. The other piece that really comes out in the way that people talk about data centers is the prism of corruption. If you look, people really believe that these data centers are being located in their communities because of a corrupt behind-the-scenes deal being done between the companies and their elected leaders.

16:01Chris Murphy: I think that That is true in some of the cases, but it's probably not. The corruption angle is probably not as widespread in the location of data centers as people think. But what it's telling you is that people think the whole conversation about AI is corrupt. They know that these companies are flooding the zone with money. They know these companies get to speak to members of Congress in a way that they don't. And it's important to understand that they believe that the whole political system is corrupt. And until you fix the political system, until you do something about the increased input that rich people have into our politics, they don't really believe that any regulatory system is going to be effective.

16:47Your own governor, Ned Lamont, is getting kind of beaten up for having pushed for tax breaks for some of these data centers in Connecticut. Now he seems to be walking that back a little bit. He's not called for a moratorium in Connecticut on their construction. Do you think he should?

17:03Chris Murphy: Listen, I don't know that you need to have a moratorium if you have a real certain sense of how these data centers are going to impact a community. but I also think you have to have a firm federal regulatory structure. In the absence of a federal regulatory structure, it may be that a moratorium makes sense because it's your only way, for instance, to stop the wholesale jobs destruction. If AI companies have a harder time building data centers, then they just aren't going to be able, for instance, to put out of business millions of coders in this country. So ultimately, I think what you have to have is a licensing system, both for models and for products, especially or at least in key sensitive industries, partnered with a tougher regulatory system around how you locate data centers.

18:02Chris Murphy: So a moratorium is probably not necessary as long as you have a federal regulatory system, but we don't have that yet. So for a lot of states and a lot of leaders and a lot of constituencies, though a moratorium is a blunt tool, it's probably your only way to stop the job destruction. I have two more things I want to make sure we talk about before we run out of time. The first is an argument that you hear all the time when it comes to regulation around AI, that somehow the U.S. cannot regulate or slow down these companies or China will win the AI race. What does that even mean? It is an industry-created red herring to prevent Congress from regulating the companies so that they can make trillions and trillions of dollars in profit.

18:49Chris Murphy: Why do we know that? Because China is regulating AI. China does not submit its citizens as guinea pigs to the technology. China right now, for all its flaws, is much more careful about the U.S. is because they worry that if they unleash AI at scale on their economy, they will have hundreds of millions of job losses and immense political instability that comes with it. China is actually rooting for us to not regulate AI. So the companies say, no, China is rooting for us to regulate AI. It's exactly the opposite. China would love for us to disintegrate economically and politically before they do, because we choose not to protect people from artificial intelligence.

19:39Chris Murphy: So just spend a couple hours researching China's AI regulatory scheme, and you will see that they are light years ahead of the United States because they actually are hoping that we do nothing and that AI destroys us before it destroys them. And their data center construction is a fraction of ours, despite the fact that in China, there is no such thing as like a NIMBY movement. I mean, the Chinese government could snap their fingers and say, we're going to build a thousand of these things. And they haven't. Why not? Well, because China also is investing in models that don't use as much compute power, whereas the United States is totally agnostic.

20:20Chris Murphy: We basically have told the companies, you know, you can develop your models in any way, shape or form. The way they are doing it involves massive compute power, which is why there's a real risk of our electricity prices going up. China instead has decided to create models that need less data centers. That sounds like a really smart thing that if China is deciding to do it, maybe the United States should decide that as well. Is it – stop me if this is a terrible metaphor, but it makes me think of like the difference between the U.S. and the Japanese car companies where the U.S. is sort of building like the biggest, loudest, most gas-guggling version.

20:54And the Japanese is like, what if we did this smaller and more efficient and sold them to your market? I mean is that a fair metaphorical comparison?

21:01Chris Murphy: Yeah, it's probably a fair analogy. I mean I think what we need in this country broadly is industrial policy. We are going to succeed because we are a free market economy. And I think ultimately China's command state-run economy can't match ours. So we want to be careful in terms of how much direction we give the AI industry from government. But we certainly need more integration between the public sector and the private sector in order to compete with China. The other thing I want to make sure to ask you about is we talked about deep fakes on the campaign trail. But how else are you seeing campaigns make use of AI?

21:40Because I could see that technology being transformative for all the different things that a good campaign has to do to get someone elected.

21:48Chris Murphy: No, it certainly will supersize a lot of the targeting efforts that have already been underway for decades in American politics where, you know, you're really looking hard for the selection of voters that are going to decide an election. Either the people who need to be persuaded or the people that need to be turned out. And so the AI tools are certainly going to help you create content, but they're also going to help you micro target your message. It's not just AI video content. There's going to be tons of of other AI created content on, you know, more text based social media platforms and more content that looks like a real human being.

22:37Chris Murphy: more content that interacts with users and other actual humans that are on those sites like Twitter or Truth Social or Blue Sky. So there's just going to be a lot more fakery. There's going to be a lot more sort of micro-targeted messaging. I'm not sure that any of that is really good for our politics. But yeah, it's in the middle of transforming the political world right now. So when you guys come back in January, is there a piece of kind of low-hanging fruit that a potentially divided Congress could pass on this issue and that President Trump could sign that would start this process of regulating AI?

23:16Chris Murphy: So I've identified in this conversation a couple pieces of kind of consumer and family-facing low-hanging fruit. That would be regulating or restricting these friendship bots, taking on the deep fakes. But it could be that the most immediate problem here are these models that are escaping containment. We haven't really talked about that yet, but you right now are on the verge of having AI company built models that escape human control. And they can't seem to fix that on their own. Why? Because they have to just speed so fast with research development and commercialization because of pressure from their investors that they basically need government.

24:02Chris Murphy: And they're kind of begging for government to come in and say, you're going to have to start permitting our models. So that is a place where I think we could get some. Again, I think this only happens if Democrats are in charge. But if Democrats are in charge, there's a possibility that we could get legislation that controls these models, that that approved these models before they get too far outside of the workshop. The containment thing is wild to me because I feel Like if you were like a nation full of zoo operators whose lions kept getting out, like governments would not tolerate that. But because it's invisible bots, we're like, oh, yeah, it's fine.

24:37Chris Murphy: Well, they'll figure it out. Government wouldn't tolerate that. But the zoos wouldn't tolerate that because they know that they would lose the zoo. They'd get sued the minute that a lion ate a bunch of school kids. And so that's what Josh Hawley's bill that he has with me does. We just introduced two weeks ago a bill that would create clear liability for the companies if their AI model escaped containment and did damage in any way, shape or form. I think that's probably the law today, but it's really unclear because we don't have a body of case law. So that analogy is apt, but only if you have clear liability.

25:23Chris Murphy: And that's something that maybe we can get done at the beginning of next year as well. All right, Senator Chris Murphy, we got to leave it there. Thanks for taking the time. Great conversation. Appreciate it. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, how public pushback against AI and data centers is changing races from Florida to Washington? Stay with us. We'll be right back.

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27:20Welcome back to Here's the Scoop, election edition. My next guest is NBC News national politics reporter Alan Smith. Alan recognized the potency of AI and data centers as election issues early, and he spent a good chunk of this election cycle reporting on them across the country from Pennsylvania to Nevada. He's been interviewing lawmakers, candidates, and voters about the role that AI is playing in their lives and in our politics. And I'm eager to get his insights into the ways it's shaping these midterms. Alan, thanks for being here. Appreciate it, Garrett. So you've been all over the country on this issue.

27:54Talk to me just sort of broadly about what you're hearing from voters about how they feel about this AI issue. Well, I think, you know, in this election cycle, you're really hearing a lot of the concerns come through around data center development, less so on AI specifically. Interesting. I was at a round table in Michigan 7th Congressional District earlier this year, and voters were just very skeptical of both the promises that these companies were making in terms of development and what they felt was happening kind of behind the curtain between the developers and local officials, especially as what's become commonplace in this development, at least up until this point, is that a lot of these guys are signing nondisclosure agreements, which, you know, no matter what is actually in them, it tells voters that there's something that they can't be made aware of, which, of course, raises skepticism.

28:41It's interesting because you see so much of this polling now where the idea of corruption has kind of crept into the top two or three issues that are on voters' minds. Do you see that kind of linking with data centers, that it's this big building, but also we don't know what's going on behind the scenes, where the money's coming from? That really does play a big role in it, Garrett. You know, these, the voters who see this, see it as an opportunity to also push back on big tech and the powers that be. You know, this is as, you know, especially as progressives see it, this is a manifestation of kind of their campaign messaging in a local form, right?

29:16So you have these data center developers coming into your community and all of a sudden, you know, these voters actually have a real chance to make an impact and push back on some of the biggest companies in the country where they really don't have that kind of power in another venue. And you're seeing the opposition lead to a lot of delays and just a lot of projects being withdrawn. So the voters who are pushing back on this are seeing results. We just interviewed Senator Murphy, and he talked a lot about sort of the longer tail issues related to AI, job displacement, and concerns about sort of society and democracy.

29:48But it's interesting to hear you say that the data centers issue has kind of leapfrogged that in the minds of voters. Why do you think that is that that gets more attention and kind of the risk of, oh, by the way, your job could get wiped out or these other big sort of big picture cultural threats? I think it's because we're in a midterm cycle and a lot of the races that are at the front of the headlines right now are governor races, Senate races, big house races, and the data center issue itself is less a national thing and more something that actually can be figured out by some of these lower level offices, stuff at the state level and below.

30:24So they have the power to really do things and influence this space. Whereas the national debate over AI, that's going to be something that is really squarely in the federal legislative area. And we've already seen, you know, President Trump and a lot of his allies are saying, we don't really want to be doing any of these kinds of regulations. We want kind of unrestrained AI growth to compete with China, compete with our adversaries in this space. So there hasn't really been a lot of momentum legislatively on some of those really major issues. But I do think as you turn the page of 2028, you're going to see AI leapfrog data centers.

31:00That's kind of the main thing in this space. You've spent a lot of time covering Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, who's been on his own evolution on this issue, let's say. Talk a little bit about the distance he's covered on this issue and to what degree Pennsylvania's policies now may be a model for other states. So he initially was a governor who really did, you know, and he's not alone in this, but he championed bringing in data center developers into Pennsylvania. There was a big deal with Amazon that he touted last year as really a big economic boost for the state. And you saw throughout this last year, you know, he initially basically came out with these voluntary standards that developers had to meet to get certain tax breaks from the state or that they'd be able to enjoy the full benefits that the state offered these developers.

31:47And by August, you know, he had he had signed an executive order mandating those kind of optional standards as stuff that they now had to no longer optional. No longer optional. And the language he was using to describe some data center developers really stood out to me. He's using language like predatory, really describing them in kind of dark and foreboding terms that that was really new for him. And, you know, he advanced pretty soon after that on AI and began kind of releasing this whole platform on what to do moving forward really at the same time that a lot of these whistleblowers were coming out, right?

32:26And warning of what AI could potentially do down the road. And the interesting thing about that angle for him is that he kind of outlined what I think are going to see as more of the center left perspective on this issue that really had been dominated by progressives in terms of we need to, you know, pause development, slow everything down, put in really stringent restrictions. You know, Shapiro was obviously for putting in additional regulations while not slowing down growth of the industry. So what do you think happened? Was this just an astute politician trying to get where the voters already were?

33:00Or is this somebody who, you know, saw something change here fundamentally and how these issues were being played out in Pennsylvania? You know, earlier on, I don't think he and his administration saw the backlash as quite as significant as it ended up being. But as it had generated steam over the course of the campaign, you know, he really did want to get at least out in front of it before November. His opponent started cutting ads, criticizing him for bringing data centers into the state. And she actually came out in favor of a moratorium until, you know, certain issues were resolved. He really isn't under threat in this election.

33:38Right. It's never been particularly close, but his goal is to carry, you know, four battleground House candidates over the finish line, as well as a host of state Senate and state House candidates as well. Give him a trifecta in Harrisburg, the state capital, while also being able to, you know, plant a flag and say, I played a huge role in helping Democrats flip the House. This was a policy space where, you know, he wants to make sure that the margins are as big as they can be. and he felt that this was a space where he was at risk of losing some of that margin, so he quickly moved to correct.

34:07Now, we should probably talk quietly because is some of this because he wants to run for president? You know, they won't say it, but it's clear as day to anyone watching that this man is at the front of the line for potential 2028 presidential contenders. So you can't throw that out as a consideration. Right. So we got him. We had Chris Murphy on the show earlier. You know, there's a lot of these other Democrats who are eyeing 2028, trying to figure out where they need to be on this issue. What are you seeing as the emerging kind of consensus points, the emerging points of differentiation between these ambitious Democrats who might want to be the next president in terms of how they're handling AI and data centers?

34:45So what's really interesting, I think Shapiro is a perfect example of this because he does kind of represent the more center-left liberal perspective compared to the progressive left. And I think whether it's Shapiro, whether it's Bernie Sanders, and he's not necessarily running for president, But he does represent the progressive view right now. You know, everybody's going to be using really tough talk. I'm going to be tough on the AI developers. We're going to have stringent regulations. You know, we aren't going to be following this Trump model of totally unrestrained growth. But where you see the difference is Shapiro very much doesn't want to institute pauses, right?

35:19And he made this a point on data centers. He's making it a point on AI development. He says, look, the pause is just an excuse to not actually do the policy that you want to do. We can just do the regulations right now. We don't need a pause. On the left, you're seeing not only support for let's pause development, whether it be data centers, whether it be the frontier AI companies, but you're also seeing, you know, let's ban super intelligence, right? Let's make certain things criminally punishable if these guys are, you know, found to be doing them or anyone working at these companies is doing stuff like this.

35:52So you're seeing the left take a much more rigid approach to this. Whereas Shapiro, and I think is going to be consensus on the center left is, look, you can't totally stop AI development. You've got to let some of this stuff growth. It's such a huge economic engine right now. I mean, it's underpinning so much of the stock market growth that has happened under President Trump. So, you know, you're seeing that divide happen. And I do think that once you get to 2028, this is going to be a dividing line. Are you with me or against me? And it's a space that's not fully defined. So you're going to have candidates in the Democratic and Republican primaries both using this to kind of pit themselves against each other.

36:28We talked about the idea that 70 percent of Americans have at least sort of trepidations about AI. I mean, 70 percent of Americans don't agree on anything. What are you seeing on the Republican side? Surely not everyone is as full steam ahead as is President Trump. Now, the guy in the Republican side that's really most interesting to me in this space is Ron DeSantis. Interesting. who had come out very early, not just on data centers being skeptical, but on AI generally. And he, even last year, was talking about the potential job impacts that this could have. And it's not a direct quote, but he'd essentially said, look, if this is a technology that's going to be eliminating a lot of jobs for my citizens, right?

37:07Why am I going to be here promoting it and championing it unabashedly? That wouldn't make any sense. So he's definitely gone in the space of being very skeptical of this. And as someone who has already run for president, so you know he's interested and could potentially run again, you could see him building a campaign where that is a major plank of his platform versus someone like, you know, Vice President Vance, who was in the administration that was advocating very strongly for this unrestrained growth. What are you seeing in terms of the money from these AI companies? They all have PACs. They all support other PACs.

37:41I mean, they're sort of playing the game in a lot of different ways. is where is their money having an impact on these midterms? It's hard to tell their money is having a huge impact, but you're seeing their strategy kind of mirror, I think what is the strategy of a group like AIPAC, which is spend a lot of money on races, but your ads, your messaging is actually not about the issue that you are caring about, right? Like AIPAC isn't cutting ads, talking about what candidates are super pro or super anti-Israel. They're doing ads on other issues that they think would influence voters to vote a certain way.

38:14And, you know, I think the biggest pack there is, which is leading the future, was backed by, you know, one of the top people at OpenAI, Mark Andreessen was involved. And, you know, they were really for this kind of national standard, right? A national framework of AI regulations that their opponents said that was way too loose, right? It did not actually serve the purpose of regulating AI further. But now as we've gotten further on in the election cycle, you know, they have tried to mirror language of some of the opponents saying, look, we're also in favor of regulations. We've been in favor of regulations the whole time, right?

38:52We also don't want unrestrained growth. We don't want unrestrained expansion of data centers everywhere. So you're seeing them adjust as the politics have also shifted here. But are they hiding the ball here? I mean, what do they actually want? I wouldn't say unrestrained growth of AI, but they want a framework where it is possible for these companies to rapidly expand and continue their path, their trajectory upward without the kind of progressive or left -wing regulations that are being proposed at the moment. I also can't think of an issue that has scrambled the traditional left-right political spectrum as much as this has.

39:28Absolutely. I mean, you're seeing guys like Bernie Sanders and Ron DeSantis kind of come to the same conclusion on some things. Um, and you know, there's not many spaces where you're seeing that happen, right? That stuff is still possible because this is an issue that is so new. Everybody's having to be educated on at the same time. And AI itself is rapidly changing. And so quickly, like when we heard a couple of months ago at this point, I think it was only last month. This is just happening so fast. Um, whistleblowers coming out and saying this technology has the chance to potentially end humanity.

40:00Yeah. Now, whether or not you agree that that's an actual possibility, the fact that people with some level of credibility inside these companies are saying that gives you pause. And, you know, I was asking people at the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas about this, and even saying the question sounded ridiculous, right? And then you hear them answer it seriously, and you're like, wow, right? It's really incredible how quickly this is all moving. Do you think there's some low-hanging fruit, some regulatory action that a potentially divided Congress might try to take early in the new year based on all this?

40:36I think a lot of it depends on what the makeup of Congress is, right? Do Democrats retake the Senate I think is a big one. If they do, I can see momentum behind the Bernie Sanders ban on superintelligence. I think you'll see momentum in the House and the Senate, a push for that from the left, kind of right out the gate. You might see a push for a data center moratorium for a pause on AI development. Now, I don't think that is going to be passing, especially with President Trump in the Oval Office, right? But you'll get a lot of messaging bills from the start. And again, we know that the 2028 campaign, I'm really hoping it doesn't, but it could start as soon as next month.

41:14Something tells me it probably will. I would love to get a break for the holidays. But as soon as we're back in January, people are going to be publishing or filing those messaging bills to kind of start and kick off the 2028 campaign. So I would expect to see a lot of activity out of the gate. Now we have that to look forward to. Alan Smith, thanks for being here. Thank you so much, Garrett.

41:37Okay, that's going to do it for today on Here's the Scoop Election Edition. Thank you for joining us. And we're headed to the homestretch now, less than two weeks out from Election Day. When I'm not here in the studio, I've been traveling around the country, as have a bunch of my NBC News colleagues, hearing from candidates, speaking to voters, and trying to take the pulse of the nation. Has President Trump's get-out-the-vote tour helped or hurt Republicans fighting to keep control of Congress? So what I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot. Just come and vote. It's so important.

42:10Or have Democrats convinced voters upset about the economy, the war in Iran, and data centers enough to help them flip the House or the Senate or both? If you could say something to President Trump right now, what would you say?

42:23Chris Murphy: Resign. You're destroying the country. Next week, I'm going to sit down with a team of political pros for a final pregame huddle that you won't want to miss. Our show was produced by Caroline Kenney and the Mandalorian. Erica Huang and Bobby Carlisto engineered with support from Jessica Fenton and Jacob Condon. Gutteri Yoakum is the executive producer of Here's the Scoop. And Shalini Sharma is the Senior Vice President of Content Development at NBC News. I'm Garrett Haake. See you next time.

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