The Washington Roundtable Live: Can D.C. Get a Grip on A.I.?

24:54Evan Osnos:It's too dangerous. Regulate it. You're absolutely right. There's a fascinating thing going on, which is in the speech that you watched at the U.N., there was a little phrase in there that caught my eye, which is that Trump said this is a globalist scheme. to try to rein in this. And he says it will not be reined in. That language, which is a sort of, you know, trigger word for a certain kind of balkanized American politics, he's recognizing what's happening, which is that this issue, particularly in the form of data centers, which are, in a sense, the kind of concrete metaphor for what people are reacting to, that there is this way in which it speaks to multiple parts of the political spectrum.

25:34How else do you get Bernie Sanders and Bannon at the same event. And the numbers are astonishing, guys. I mean, just over the course of a few months, the opposition to data centers and to AI more broadly, the sense of suspicion people have, has climbed dramatically just from January. I'll mention something interesting. There was a good piece in The New Yorker this week by our colleague, Gideon Lewis Krauss, who makes a couple of good points. One of them is he says, look, what's happening here is that we are less than a decade after the era in which the dominant culture of Silicon Valley was, and we'll all remember this, move fast and break things, or slightly less well-remembered is the Uber slogan.

26:15Uber's slogan was, ask for forgiveness, not for permission. And what's happening now, it strikes me, and I'm curious what you make of this, is people are reacting. They're recoiling from this feeling that once again, the world is about to be shaped without our consent. And specifically, and I think Gideon makes a good point, we're living in a moment where we're being told that we have neither the money nor the political will and organization to be able to address things like the housing crisis, healthcare, childcare, all of the issues that are profoundly present in people's lives. And yet somehow there are endless resources that can be summoned overnight to build a data center in your backyard.

26:57How is that happening?

27:00Evan Osnos:Yeah. I mean, listen to the applause, right? This is the sleeper issue of 2026 that's become the main issue. I think that's what has surprised Washington once again. If you asked the, you know, sort of, you know, the wise men, the political strategists nine months ago, none of them would have expected that we would be on stage in the purplest of purple states in America with people applauding this as an issue that really resonates for them. And, you know, I think, Jane, the question that I have is, okay, well, is it a partisan issue in the sense that people are going to blame Republicans for this?

27:40Evan Osnos:There are a lot of Democratic politicians around the country. Look at, you know, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania having to backpedal a little bit from his initial support for data centers. You know, this goes to the question of, is it further contributing to a moment of great existential angst in general among Americans, right? The American electorate heading into this election is really unhappy, really uncertain about the future, definitely furious with incumbency as a general principle, and specifically, you know, with the party that controls all three major branches of our elected government right now, which is the Republican Party.

28:18Evan Osnos:But, you know, I just don't know about its salience as a voting issue yet in the sense that, you know, so far, do people think Republicans have a policy on AI that they're voting against? Or is it more just contributing to the general sense that our political class has kind of failed us? Well, honestly, Trump has walked right into this by saying, you know, anybody who doesn't want a data center in their backyard is going to be left behind and impoverished. So he's made it into an issue that has got MAGA on one side. And I think it's fascinating that he is where he is on this because usually you think of him as, among other things, a good marketer, somebody who really is good at selling himself and kind of has a sense of, you know, where the public is in many ways.

29:09And I think he's really, it shows how isolated he is in the White House because he obviously is missing the feeling out in the country on this. And I think the feeling is very intense. And I think the other thing that you can see going on is that while the federal government and Washington may not be up to this challenge fast enough, I think there's 16 states now that are looking at some kind of legislation to ban data centers or at least control them. So you're seeing the grassroots is reacting much faster and local governments are seeing this. Also, one of the things that makes this an issue on which you can get the unlikely breaking of bread by Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders is that it does have such a natural reflection of the oligarchic moment.

30:03You know, we are, all of us have written in one form or another about the rise of powers that are essentially nearly sovereign. These companies, and particularly some of the individuals like Elon Musk, are at a point now where they are beyond the reach of normal politics. And I think that what people are responding to is that that offends them on both the left and the right. And that's why this is, in some ways, it feels to me like it's scrambling Trump's circle. And that's why Bernie Sanders and Bannon both, I think, also.

30:32Evan Osnos:But by the way, though, that's the thing. We're still, we always, we have a very conventional framework. Not us personally, but I think in general for, you know, obviously we're very cutting edge here in this podcast. But, you know, our ideology is so ingrained in us that everything is on a left-right spectrum. Elon Musk at the moment is one of the doomers. And he is in stark opposition. If you look at what Musk is saying, he's agreeing with the other AI leaders who are out there. It's a real contrast when you consider how much money he put into sort of buying and maintaining some form of control over the Trump administration.

31:13Evan Osnos:But there's another factor we haven't talked about. And I think if we're going to talk about AI, we should definitely mention it. If you talk to the security circles as opposed to the economic circles or the political strategists, what I'm scared about is that there's a real gap between those conversations right now. Because this is also a screaming red siren national security crisis in the making. And just the other day, I was, you know, and Jane and I were listening to, you know, colleagues who really know what they're talking about, saying, it's not a question of if, but really when, that we have some kind of a drone attack moment inside the United States in Western Europe.

32:01Evan Osnos:it's probably not a matter of if but when that you have some kind of an unconventional attack that is facilitated by AI whether it's a creation of a synthetic virus which is already within the capability of some of these models or some other form of weapon of mass destruction that would have previously been out of the reach of any but a government or a national actor. And that's the kind of thing that I'm hearing. We talked before we were, everyone here was laughing at the mere thought that Congress would get its act together and do something. Most of the people that I talked to believe it's only going to be another tragic 9-11 type moment.

32:42Evan Osnos:And here we are 25 years after 9-11 that might force the United States to get its act together and to confront this as a security threat and not a question of jobs or economic dislocation. Well, you know, this is Mark Warner, of course, who is senior on the Intelligence Committee, has said, you know, we only do things when there is a holy heck moment, as he put it. Kind of a dorky quote, honestly. Yeah, I thought so too. But a pretty terrifying scenario for lawmaking. And of course, what he's getting at is something that's true, which is that only after something happens will people find their way.

33:21In some ways, this brings us back to where we started, which is the subject of China, because China is usually invoked these days as here's the reason why we can't pass any legislation, why we can't put any guidelines in place. But you know what's amazing, guys? I remember when I was interviewing Mark Zuckerberg many years ago about social media. One of the things he said at the time was we can't legislate or control social media because it will hand the future to China. It will hand the future of social media to China. You know, maybe we would have been so lucky had they actually had that. I mean, that's been the excuse on climate change as well.

33:57I mean, for years, every time somebody would say we really need to do something about it, they'd say, well, it won't matter because China's not going to cooperate. Now, China's run away with electric cars and solar panels. This is known as the but China exception.

34:14Evan Osnos:Exactly. The but China problem. And actually, Donald Trump explicitly said that just this week. He said we cannot afford to let China win this race. So, you know, it's not even subtle at this point. But again, I come back to the fact that it's we ourselves that are creating this. You know, it's not about persuading China to do or not do something. It's about America. venture out and be naive and say, I actually think that it's possible that there will be an international kind of treaty of some sort, not right now, maybe, but who would have thought it was possible with nuclear weapons? There have been other kinds of regulations that have really been complicated and worked on in the scientific area with genes and other kinds of research that could be really dangerous.

35:07And I like to think we're capable of taking these issues on.

35:13Evan Osnos:Jane, I know we are, I have the long established role of playing the downer to your faith in humanity in this podcast, but I would point out that it was only after the United States used nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the world decided that we needed to have some kind of way to avoid that. The holy heck moment. Okay. Well, on with that happy, happy, that can't be, we can't end on Nagasaki. No, I actually, I was going to say, do you think, I mean, I also think to some extent people are just awakening to this. I mean, Silicon Valley has been very much awake to it. Um, but I think the general public is just beginning to pay attention.

35:56And I think that sometimes the very last people to understand what's happening are the people in Washington, honestly. I think a lot of change happens out in the country first. So, I mean, I think maybe in the early days of this, and I really wonder, you know, when you hear Obama saying the Democrats need to lead on this issue, I'm thinking by 2028, the next presidential election. I'm making a bet this will be a big issue. What do you guys think? Absolutely true. I think that this officially we can declare the honeymoon is over on AI. You know, the period when everybody was saying, well, this will help my kids learn.

36:35It'll help with protein folding and science. No, we're at a different phase now. And it's in its way, it's a kind of healthier, more sophisticated conversation. It's scary. It's totally unsettling. You know, I, for one, want to stop calling these, you know, talking about a rogue AI that's broken out. Like at a certain point, it's a scorpion doing what a scorpion does. Like you just have to acknowledge these things are a dangerous fact of our lives and need to be treated as such in political terms. I think that's the phase that we're entering. The question I pose to you, Susan, is, you know, if you're thinking about 2028, if you're a Democratic candidate, you've got a fairly broad spectrum of views within the party.

37:17And, you know, do you ally yourself with the Bernie Sanders element of it, or do you go for something that is perhaps more accommodating to people who are less sure about it? Do you have a feel for where you think that's going at this stage?

37:31Evan Osnos:Yeah, well, again, I think the more that politicians climb on board this issue, the more we see speeches like Trump's this week, and the more that it becomes a partisan issue. And I think that inevitability is part of why you hear the rising almost panic in the voices of these folks in Silicon Valley who actually know what they're building. If you talk to somebody who understands that in a way that we don't in Washington, they're like, 2028, are you crazy? What are you talking about? Like, you know, the phone call folks is coming from inside the house. And I feel like we in the political world in Washington are not getting it.

38:09Evan Osnos:I don't think we have the luxury of being like, well, you know, maybe in 2028, this will be like a, you know, a brewing issue. You know, what we're talking about is something that is essentially unregulated with a president cheering on, saying, go, go, go, go, go, even if he's being told that we're hurtling over a cliff. So my expectation is that it's very, very hard to talk about what kind of a policy debate we're going to be having in 2028 when I'm taking these warnings very seriously, to be honest. We're going to take another quick break. When we come back, we'll hear from the audience at the Cap Times Idea Fest and take some of their questions about AI, the press, and what happens next.

38:53The political scene from The New Yorker will be back in just a moment.

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40:33I think maybe we should take a few questions from this audience. And it doesn't have to be on AI, on whatever's on your mind. We'd really love to hear what you are thinking about. Something that ends with a question mark. Here's the question. Not a speech. In light of the threat that AI could cause something like a virus that would spread or some other catastrophic thing, and Americans are concerned about it, wouldn't the Chinese or everyone else in the world be just as concerned that that kind of thing could occur from the United States? Does that give us some hope that there could be negotiations about regulation because it's in the interest of every country?

41:31Yeah, I have to say, I think you're right. I think that we're particularly recently, there has been a noticeable uptick in Chinese official conversation about the threat that AI poses. For a long time, it was a lot of very happy talk about all of the opportunities it represented. But over the course of the last few months, because of the hugging face attack and others, in particular, the head of the Chinese spy agency came out recently and said, we need to talk about the threat this could pose to political and social stability. So once the spy agency is motivated, things happen in China. So I think we have entered this phase now where it's entered the vocabulary of national interest.

42:11And that, in some sense, is the first step towards being able to come together around some sort of international interest.

42:17Evan Osnos:Yeah. And Evan, that's such an important point. Just to the point about the security threat, just today at the United Nations, there was a special meeting during the General Assembly with some of the leaders of these AI companies. But I really noticed when President Zelensky of Ukraine got up and told the UN today, he said, again, we don't have the luxury of waiting. He said, by early next year, it may be already that weapons are being autonomously decided and targeted. And, you know, the future of war is what we've been seeing previewed over this last four horrible years in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

42:55Evan Osnos:And so when Zelensky says, this isn't happening in 2028, this is happening right now, that autonomous military targeting decisions. Already AI may have been used, it appears, in that horrific strike that the Pentagon had on a girls' school in Iran at the beginning of this conflict. So, you know, I don't think it's as theoretical as we'd like to make it, unfortunately. I'm pretty certain that Pete Hegseth will be on top of it.

43:28Somehow that's even darker than Nagasaki, I think.

43:35Hi, I'm just wondering in regard to the press poll, why doesn't one of them say, excuse me, what did you say to me? Miss Piggy and be quiet, be quiet. Why don't they talk back to him? Why did they let him do it? I never heard one person respond to him. You're talking about Caitlin Collins?

44:00Evan Osnos:Well, any of them. He's insulted so many reporters, and it's true that Trump has a habit of targeting female reporters in the press corps. But, you know, it's been a real dilemma for journalists. We don't like to be the story ourselves. And I think there's a general sense that Trump has tried to bait the press corps into becoming the story. I remember Marty Baron, who was the editor of The Washington Post during the first Trump administration, you know, he had this slogan, you know, this response. he said, you know, we're not the opposition. We're here to do our work and not to, you know, engage in partisan fights with the president.

44:39Evan Osnos:And so I think up until now, the idea was not to turn it into a story about Trump versus the press corps, because that's what Trump wanted. And frankly, even this week, you know, this is an old trick in his playbook, right, to come out and say, I want to change the subject because frankly, everything else is going really badly for him. I hear the exasperation in your voice, though, too, that on just on a human level, I think we look at and say, how can we not just say to that person at that moment, how dare you say such a thing? And I think there is one of the thing that's been hard for the press corps.

45:15As you say, we don't, you know, at the same time that we don't, you know, there is no shortage of vanity in the press corps. However, we don't want to make it an easy fight where we say, OK, now they've been able to make the reporter the issue. And so it's been this hard process of learning. And in a way, the solution has to be solidarity, that you band together and you say, we will not participate in this. I have to say about, it makes me think of when I worked at the Wall Street Journal, the rule was so against making yourself the story. They had a rule that was the only time you could begin a sentence that began with I was if it ended with was shot in the groin.

46:00So, um, I do think though, you heard it here, folks, the first time that phrase has been uttered in this stage, I hope this, the solidarity, uh, issue has been even before Trump, a problem when covering the white house, because if you notice in the white house press briefings, the reporters don't follow up on each other's questions. They just, and they, if they were really going to do the job in a generous way, they should work with each other and say, that was a good question. What's the answer? And keep pushing it till they get the answer. And they don't work like that. They're divided against each other.

46:42I mean, I think that for Caitlin Collins and others, it's kind of a matter of professional pride. They don't let it get under their skin, or at least they don't show it. And they just keep asking the question as if it hasn't ruffled them. I'd like to see the others stand up and say, that was incredibly rude. We're going to leave now. Or something. Something.

47:11Evan Osnos:In light of all that's going on with AI that you've talked about here, are there any people who you turn to who might offer a way forward, especially in the political arena? You know, I do think of people like Mark Warner, for instance, who I mentioned earlier, who has experience in business, particularly when it comes to, you know, on the edges of the technology world and is also has his feet in the intelligence and national security world. Not because I think that he is in possession of special knowledge, but because part of what has to happen here is figuring out a way of mobilizing a meaningful political response.

47:55And so it is gratifying and sometimes it's quite cathartic for us to be able to talk to one another the way we do about AI. But that's a slightly separate question from, OK, now, how do you actually marshal the energy in Washington at a moment when, let's be clear, the lobbying money that is directed on this issue is enormous. I mean, one in four lobbyists in Washington right now is working on AI. It was one in 10 two or three years ago. So it's just you're dealing with a serious tsunami of money and it takes real political sophistication. But I'm curious if there are others that you guys turn to either in elected office or outside.

48:32I mean, there is a proposal that is bipartisan that has been put together by Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, and Josh Hawley, Republican from Missouri. And it's interesting that it's bipartisan. I mean, I've looked at it. I thought it seemed a little timid to me, but at least it was a start. You know, if you step back, part of the problem is also that the whole idea of regulation has been so demonized for 50 years by the right wing that they've really made it out to be the enemy of the economy and of business. And there's an interesting point made in a piece by Tom Friedman in The Times where he points out that to the contrary, regulations have actually helped businesses thrive, like our pharmaceutical industry, because consumers and other businesses trust it because it's regulated.

49:32And that would be the truth for AI as well, I think. But really, it's a big image fight to try to make people understand that regulation is a positive thing at this point. Because so much money has been spent demonizing it by the Cokes and others who just don't want any kind of controls on their profit. Yeah.

49:55Evan Osnos:I mean, look, to be quite blunt, if you're looking to any member of the U.S. Congress for thought leadership on AI, you know, that's not going to happen. I mean, you know, I do believe that it's important they're responding to a public outcry. And some of these bills are laying down markers for the possibility in future years. So I would expect it to unfold over a period of time, but it's really only likely in a crisis moment or when there's a change of power at the very top. In the Trump era, Washington, as we know it, it's not going to produce a kind of thought leadership. And what I'm looking at is about history.

50:35Evan Osnos:It's a lot more about what narrative is going to win here. I think to take Jane's cue and read the history of what was the freakout. It was a freak out around the world in the 1950s about how to deal with constraining this existential threat of nuclear weapons. That's the kind of books that I want to read right now or books about that. I want to read books about technological disruption that was perceived as a security threat. I want to read books about, you know, how the U.S. overcame moments or, you know, the progressive era when we got the idea that libertarianism wasn't always going to produce the best outcome, including for business in America.

51:24Evan Osnos:We got some patient folks back there. Hi. I don't know enough about the capital that's needed to be invested to make AI work, but are China and the U.S. the only ones doing this? I mean, Russia has very good scientists. Iran does. Israel does. There's lots of places that train good people. There is activity in all of the places you mentioned. I mean, also in Europe. Interestingly, it strikes me that the quote that Donald Trump is now saying about AI, where he says that whichever country wins on AI wins it all, which is this strange kind of cosmic pronouncement about AI, that it actually sounded better in the original Russian because Putin said it way back years ago.

52:19So there is a temptation, a desire for this kind of technological solution to power. But the reality is the reason why we talk about this as a China-U.S. issue is because there is such a concentration of capital, of talent, of development, of inertia. These things build on each other. There are clusters of companies that are borrowing and building off of one another. So it's not that the others don't matter, but you can't get to any kind of meaningful progress on this without having those two giants in the mix.

52:54Evan Osnos:Just a minor point here before we end, which is to say the problem isn't that all those actors are also going to be developing AI. It's that everybody's going to use what we develop. And I don't know about you, but I really gave me the shivers when I saw the report the other day that the Houthis in Yemen had used AI to develop their plan of attack to basically pile on to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by closing the Arabian passage that, you know, is another chokehold on the global economy. And that's the future. That's why I'm thinking about things like the post-9-11 world and what are the frameworks in which we think about this when we're distributing, we're giving the power to people that in the past only governments and even in the present only governments or the wealthiest of wealthy corporations can afford to develop this technology, but everybody's going to be able to use it.

53:57Guys, we talk about some tough stuff on this show. We've been doing it for a few years. I always feel slightly more, if not reassured, a little more illuminated at the end of a conversation like that. You're not worried about hosting for the holidays? Oh, Wayfair's got me covered with holiday decor, extra dining chairs, and guest bedding, all with tons of five-star reviews, so there's no surprises. Unless Uncle Matt brings his dogs again. For worry-free hosting, Wayfair delivers. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business.

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55:06And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. It has been a joy to be able to do it with you guys today and with all of you here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

55:34This has been The Political Scene from The New Yorker. I'm Jane Mayer. We had research assistance today from Alex D 'Elia. Our producer is Nora Ritchie. Mixing by Mike Cushman. Stephen Valentino is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. Special thanks to CapTime's IdeaFest for having us. Thanks for listening.