Barack Obama urged Democrats to prioritize a \u201cpublic conversation\u201d about AI management and safety in a closed-door Manhattan fundraiser last week.<\/p>\n
The comments by the former US president reportedly<\/a> urged the party to create a sweeping framework for everything from a safety \u201cslow-down\u201d to domestic job losses and children\u2019s wellbeing.<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s comments follow a summer in which a band of rogue OpenAI chatbots<\/a> hacked the company Hugging Face, towns across the country opposed datacenters<\/a> and an AI researcher resigned in a viral social media post<\/a> warning: \u201cThe people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.\u201d<\/p>\n AI leaders have recently expressed agreement that the race for technological superiority should slow, but have also sought to appease investors, whose stake in the technology is predicted to exceed $1tn in 2026 alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you are speaker,\u201d Obama said to US House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York-Democrat, at the fundraiser Thursday. \u201cI would strongly urge that the Democrats put together a framework for a very public conversation,\u201d according to a transcript first reported by the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don\u2019t get on top of it, I think can be dangerous,\u201d Obama said. \u201cIf we do get on top of it, I do think it\u2019s beneficial. I genuinely think it\u2019s going to accelerate, for example, drug development in ways that can help us cure diseases. I do think that this can help us figure out pathways for a clean energy future.\u201d<\/p>\n Obama later added: \u201cI would talk about this, and I would say, \u2018Here\u2019s our plan for safety. Here\u2019s our plan for making sure our kids are not corrupted by this,\u2019\u201d he said<\/a> according to the Times.<\/p>\n Obama made the remarks as the US closes in on the midterm elections and Congress has taken little action on AI. While prominent Democratic<\/a> lawmakers, and some Republicans, have called to regulate the technology, Trump has attempted to aid the AI industry by introducing legislation that would ban state regulations<\/a> (the bill did not move forward). Democrats face an open presidential field in 2028.<\/p>\n One major flashpoint for the midterm elections is datacenters that power AI companies. Both parties<\/a> have since begun running ads that oppose them, as one of the few issues, \u201cMaga Republicans and liberal Democrats\u201d agree on, according to an NPR analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Sunday, while on a trip to his Irish golf course<\/a>, Trump told reporters that a lot of \u201cvery negative forces\u201d are \u2060bringing up concerns \u2060about \u200bAI that \u201cwon\u2019t happen\u201d, and that his main concern was that the US remain the industry leader, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re leading China \u200bin AI. \u200cWe\u2019re the \u200cmost sophisticated country in the world, \u200cand frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins,\u201d Trump told reporters when asked if \u200cthe AI industry should slow down or be \u200bmore regulated.<\/p>\n In the past, Trump has said on social media that anyone who opposes AI datacenters is likely \u201cbackwards and poor\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,\u201d he said on TruthSocial two weeks ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barack Obama urged Democrats to prioritize a \u201cpublic conversation\u201d about AI management and safety in a closed-door Manhattan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-345707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}