Republicans in Washington have several AI-related priorities that outrank AI doom today, according to Dean Ball, an AI-focused research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. Those include building out data centers to power AI, using AI in the government and military, competing with China, limiting content moderation from center-left tech companies, and protecting children from AI chatbots.
“I think [the movement to prevent catastrophic AI risk] has lost ground at the federal level. At the state and local level they have also lost the one major fight they had,” said Ball in an interview with TechCrunch. Of course, he’s referring to California’s controversial AI safety bill SB 1047.