David Shor

And we are back.

We are live with David Shor, who's the head of data science at Blue Rose Research, which is a firm that uses surveys and modeling to test political messages.

They do, like, really interesting, uh, polling and data science and political science work.

Uh, every time they publish something, it's like, "Wow, this is, um, very interesting." And they've just done a whole presentation on AI's populist moment.

Obviously, you do have other people in the party who want to keep good relations with Big Tech and with the AI industry, and whether it's over the economy or fears of losing out to China, they still want to be prioritizing this as a, a major industry in the US.

So is there any concern about being labeled as, you know, the party of no on AI? I mean, these guys at least felt pretty confident that no, there isn't, because this is where the voters are, and that's also something that David Shor, the head of data science at the Democratic firm Blue Rose Research, has been pointing out as he's been tracking this issue, you know, over time.

And I talked to him.

I mean, he was emphasizing that voters are really hungry for something bold on AI to match the pretty intense fears that they have about it.

[laughs] Like very strong, like immune response from society.

The pollster David Shor said something like, "If AI caused unemployment to spike by like 2% or 3%, it would be the number one political issue [laughs] in the country." So yeah, I, I think there'd be really, really strong negative response from the public, from politicians.

I think you would, you know, economic models show that in that scenario, output kind of goes to the moon while wages plummet.

And there would still be some jobs, right? There would be jobs in the physical world.

This does not bode well for the Republicans, and I kind of regret not pulling the trigger and betting on the Democrats in the midterms right after Coxon resigned and his tweet went fully viral, which I actively considered doing.

David Shor: Just to update this chart, one, AI salience has increased dramatically in the past week, increasing as much in the last week as the previous year combined.

Two, eighty percent of voters think it's either very or somewhat likely that AI will cause widespread job loss in the next five to ten years.

Three, sixty-four percent of voters think it's either very or somewhat likely that AI could pose a threat to humanity's survival.

Adam Kovacevic: Thanks, David.

As AI has risen in salience, where does it rank now in your ranked list of importance to voters?

David Shor: Twenty-second out of thirty-nine, approximately tied with crime.

[paper flipping] Everybody wants a meeting.

Can you tell me what is this conference and event, and how did Manifest get on your radar?

So Manifest has been on my radar for quite a while just 'cause it's this, on one hand, kind of fringe culture but on the other hand, attended by lots of people who are big media figures, big political figures, people like Nate Silver, formerly of fivethirtyeight, people like Kevin Roose of The New York Times, people like David Shor, who ran Kamala Harris' super PAC.

So it was interesting to me for the reason that it's ostensibly this conference that's for this kind of fringe culture online that is, like, on Twitter and on Less Wrong, which is the blog that they all gather on.

It's this forum.