In late March, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont staged a bizarre event where he “interviewed” Anthropic’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Claude, about the role of A.I. in the world. Mr. Sanders asked Claude about the impact of A.I. data collection on democracy and then asked the software if it would “support, or think it’s a good idea, to have a moratorium on the development of new A.I. data centers.”
The progressive stalwart was asking an A.I. chatbot for feedback on how to regulate itself, and treating it like a living and thinking entity rather than a piece of software. It’s part of a pattern. In late April, the senator referred on CNN to the A.I. pioneer Geoffrey Hinton’s claim that there was a “10 percent to 20 percent chance that if A.I. becomes smarter than human beings, which is likely, that it could result, literally, in the extermination of humanity” — language that could have come from Elon Musk’s X feed. Mr. Sanders doesn’t appear interested in having a rational conversation about A.I. and how to manage it.
Despite pointed disagreement from many experts, tech leaders in Silicon Valley continue to encourage the idea that A.I. is on its way to having a godlike potential, dangerously powerful, and that A.I. could one day rule the world. Making this potential seem real drives up hype and stock prices. These firms have found unwitting, yet eager, allies to help them spread this sales pitch: left-leaning Democrats and their allies, like Mr. Sanders, who have struggled to nail down a coherent policy position on A.I. and are tilting toward an apocalyptic vision of the future.
At its core, the left’s case against A.I. isn’t hard to understand. We should all be deeply concerned about the use of the technology in military applications like missile targeting and in government surveillance. A.I. could leave millions of people without jobs. The physical infrastructure that undergirds A.I. also requires vast levels of energy and capital to operate.
But progressives are stumbling to put forth an A.I. agenda that is realistic. On Mar. 25, Mr. Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York proposed legislation for a moratorium on data center construction until limits are put in place to ensure the technology doesn’t threaten what’s vaguely defined as “the future of humanity.” Enshrining rules around A.I. safety is a good idea, but it’s outlandish to believe a moratorium with these goals can work. Furthermore, the bill buoys industry-serving messaging by including commentary about the power of A.I. from billionaires like Mr. Musk, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, as evidence of the apocalyptic and “catastrophic consequences from unchecked artificial intelligence development and deployment.”
Other Democrats have proposed bills that nibble on the margins of A.I. regulation. In 2024, Representative Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts introduced a bill calling for some oversight around algorithmic bias in federal agencies; that same year, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware proposed legislation that would promote the development of technology that aligns with human rights, presumably including A.I. But these bills represent minor tweaks to existing law, and seem to have died in committee anyway, long before they ever could get to the White House.
If progressives in Washington are serious about writing realistic legislation that curbs the excesses of Silicon Valley and prevents the worst effects of A.I. on the livelihoods of Americans, they should listen to the tech industry’s middle and working classes that comprise developers, engineers, analysts and small business owners. These are the people who have a grounded understanding of what A.I. can and cannot do, and whose experiences can provide priceless perspective to inform policymakers on how to implement regulation that matters.
As a tech business reporter, I’ve spent years listening to these people talk about A.I.’s potential and drawbacks. They share the broader public’s concerns over how the technology could impact stretched energy grids, be used by the powerful to target critics without guardrails, warp their children’s education and career prospects and be deployed by malicious actors to attack private and public systems. Yet tech professionals seem more clearheaded than Democrats in Washington about what the tools actually do. A.I. is integrated into almost every aspect of tech workers’ day-to-day jobs, and they understand its benefits in addition to its limits.
Progressives should not only listen to these workers, but also support their labor efforts to pressure large tech companies to be more responsible stewards of this powerful technology. Hundreds of workers at Google’s DeepMind lab for A.I. development are protesting the company’s work with national militaries. As the war in Gaza progressed, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon tech workers in the U.S. protested their companies’ selling of A.I. technology to the Israeli government. And the AFL-CIO has adopted principles to protect workers across the economy from A.I. misuse and displacement.
Workers are standing up against the excesses and misuse of A.I. across the tech sector, even as their corporate overseers are utilizing the technology to monitor them. Empowering these workers can change the perception that the entire tech industry is in tension with the public, and more clearly demonstrate how pro-regulation forces have allies within Silicon Valley.
It’s not too late for the left to change course and address A.I. in a way that takes the technology and its potential danger seriously. But that will require listening to and heeding what tech workers say — less flamboyant than the promises of Silicon Valley leadership, but ultimately a better bet for the sector’s regulatory future and for the public good.
Eoin Higgins is a journalist based in New England whose work focuses on tech, media and politics. He is the author of “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left.”
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