Odd couple: Bernie Sanders, Steve Bannon join forces to push for stricter AI regulations
AI fears acquaint a man with strange bedfellows.Far-left Sen.Bernie Sanders and right-winger Steve Bannon are joining forces to push for stricter restrictions on artificial intelligence, a surprising team-up that highlights growing backlash to the new tech across the political aisle.The Vermont democratic socialist and onetime chief strategist to President Trump were scheduled to speak Tuesday at a Washington, DC, rally calling for firm human control of AI and accountability for the companies developing it.Sen.
Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Rep.Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Rep.
Greg Casar (D-Texas) were also headlining the “Pro-Human Assembly” event, along with stars like Ashley Judd and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, according to the organizer’s website.The rally, put on by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, comes after months of protests across the country in which Americans have blasted AI data centers for potential noise and light pollution.Fears that artificial intelligence will eventually replace workers in all kinds of jobs have also made the tech unpopular among voters — just over three in five of them oppose construction of new data centers, according to a New York Times/Siena University poll released Tuesday.Fears around the tech ramped up last week after Jacob Coxon, a researcher who previously worked at Anthropic and OpenAI, quit his job and issued a chilling warning that AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a lengthy essay urging rival companies to slow their work on AI models, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SpaceX founder Elon Musk also spoke out about the risks of unchecked development.Bannon, a godfather of the MAGA movement, has departed from the president’s views on AI, arguing there should be more government regulation of the industry.During his podcast “Bannon’s War Room” on Monday, Bannon said Congress should not ban states from enforcing their own restrictions on the new technology.�...