It's sort of like, you know, how do you embrace a cactus?

It's a complicated technology.

And, you know, I should emphasize that, you know, I work at an AI company, but You know, I also have the rest of my life and I'm experiencing the same sort of feelings that others are as I've watched this technology grow in its capabilities.

Just quickly before diving in on your question, just to help people understand why the technology suddenly became so prominent, given that the underlying ideas had been around for years.

The real reason that AI became a phenomenon only a few years ago is because of computing power.

It's because computers became more and more powerful, data on the internet became much more plentiful, and those two ingredients together allowed this technology itself to become more powerful.

So it was really the power of computers that determined that moment where we went, wow, this seems like magic.

So, of course, the question was, is this going to weaken our natural critical thinking or to what extent do you think it may have that impact? Go for it.

And by the way, I think Anthropic is one of the

only ones I think is even slightly ethical.

Well, the first thing I want to say about Anthropic is when I joined, the first thing I wanted to figure out was, does it feel the same inside as it looks outside? Are these people sincere about what they're saying? Because there's a lot of noise on social media about how it's strategic.

But I can share one thing about my experience at Anthropic, which is that people are being extremely sincere.

What you hear Dario say publicly is like, that's exactly the same thing that we're talking about internally.

But to turn away from Anthropic and get to the broader issues, I do agree with you that there is...

There's a problem in Silicon Valley culture and it goes to the top, maybe in some cases it inheres in the top.

And when you said the word railroads, like my brain went railroads.

Written by Mercy A. Kuo in The Diplomat, narrated for Aava.

The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into US-Asia policy.

This conversation with Dr. Matthew Botvinick, author of AI and Political Reform: The Risk to Democracy and How to Respond, Princeton University Press, 2026, world-renowned AI researcher and neuroscientist, senior fellow at Yale Law School and member of the technical staff at Anthropic, leading research on AI and the rule of law, is the five hundred twenty-ninth in the Transpacific View Insight series.

Explain how AI will pose fundamental challenges to constitutional democracy.

We are in a remarkable political moment right now where two trends are converging.

First, AI is generating feelings of insecurity and vulnerability across society.

Second, in many democracies, trust in government institutions is low.

... epidemic of distrust that we're now experiencing, but, uh, a democracy which is entirely trusting is probably no healthier than a, a democracy which is entirely distrusting.

I couldn't agree more with that.

So just to be clear, the term, as I use it in the book, specifically is about a distrust of government, a distrust of especially democratic institutions.

It's, it's not about a distrust of, uh, say, corporate power or a distrust of, um, other forms of concentrated power in society.

S- And that is something that l- a degree of trust in democratic government is something that has changed very much over time.

As you say, it's a, it's an, an inherent part of democracy and certainly part of American democracy over the years, uh, that it involves a distrust of, um, other forms of, of elite power.

So, so for example, um, you might compare what's going on right now, say with, um, uh, the movement against data centers.

Um, is one of the, the challenges in terms of defending democracy rebuilding the state, maintaining its credibility, its trust? And the challenge or the problem, what makes this so complicated is the reality of all this AI technology, which is both part of the problem, but also a kind of solution.

Do you think that's enough? Do you think that democratic governments have got a handle on this?

Well, I mean, personally, I think AI is just like any other powerful technology.

It's important for government to work in a legitimate democratic fashion in order to promulgate common sense regulations.

I don't think that should be a controversial stance.

You know, I think about the dawn of commercial aviation when we when we were, you know, flying sort of dangerous machines around and, you know, we have all sorts of regulation around airplanes and nobody seems to think that's a big deal.

We're all quite glad that, you know, people have to have their airplanes inspected and have to have them registered.

And so, you know, I think at a broad level, I think it's quite reasonable for us to consider a future where common sense regulation is in place.

Is there a future in which AI could actually facilitate democracy, that it could strengthen it, as opposed to attacking it from the inside?