Siliconsciousness: How Can Democrats Get Their Act Together on AI?

Uh, and I'll, I'll just take them in some, in a, in a random order.

But yesterday there was a, an article in The New York Times, uh, that focused on, uh, uh, uh, Americans' attitudes towards AI.

It was called There's One Clear Reason Americans Are Gloomy About AI.

Um, it was by a guy named Paul Kedrosky, who's a venture capitalist.

Uh, and it's a subject I know, um, is on your mind.

I know when you were working in the Office of AI back in the day, you know, there was a little bit of a kind of a, I don't know, there was a buzz.

This was a positive thing, great new technological change, and in just the course of the few years since, we've gotten to the point where the majority of people under 40 don't like or trust AI, where AI is associated with right-wing tech bros and, and supporters of Trump, and it's seen as kind of a, uh, a MAGA plot by some people, uh, and where Americans just aren't looking at it the same way the rest of the world is.

Uh, and I thought you'd be a good person to talk to to try and help figure out why that's the case.

Well, I'm really glad you brought this up.

So the social contract not being up to date for...

Now, I mean, the American social contract was always stingy to begin with.

It was always focused, um...

It was a little racist.

It was a little sexist.

It was focused on people who had a, a good job.

So if you were employed in an auto factory, you got your healthcare and your pension through your employment, and the assumption was your wife and your whole family would be taken care of via you and that, uh, you'd get Social Security and a pension when you retired.

So it's always been, you know, structured around this, uh, industrial breadwinner family, but it's also been really stingy compared to most other countries.

It's meant to keep you out of poverty unless you had that top-up from the employer.

Um, and it just doesn't work anymore, you know, when we've got gig work and temp work, when people are switching jobs all the time, when there are two people working in every... or a single parent working in every family.

Um, so it was already out of date.

In fact, when I went to work for, um, a senator you may have heard of, Barack Obama, when he was first elected to the Senate, uh, the reason he asked me to come work for him was because I'd been thinking about those topics, and he was thinking about them.

We're in this global economy.

The social contract isn't working, and that, that argument features in his Audacity of Hope.

Um, I went on to write The Platform in 2008.

It features there.