{"text":[[{"start":4.5,"text":"America’s AI titans used to warn about the technology’s extinction-level threat to humanity. “Stop me before I harm the species,” was their gist. Then they radically changed their tune. Anybody today who questions Silicon Valley’s accelerationist drive is an “AI doomer” — a Luddite who might as well be on China’s team. Safety is woke. So too is worrying about your kids’ mental health or your future earnings. Anything that gets in the way of the US winning the superintelligence race is either uninformed or dumb. That includes most of you."}],[{"start":36.55,"text":"But you are in good company. It is rare for the US public to agree on anything these days. Fear of AI is as close to a national consensus as it gets. A clear majority says that AI will do more harm than good. In one recent NBC poll, AI’s net negative rating ranked below ICE, the disliked immigration enforcement agency. A sizeable share of both Democrats and Republicans oppose new data centres. Even strong voter preferences, however, are little match for the lobbying clout of America’s tech giants, especially with Donald Trump behind them. "}],[{"start":71.6,"text":"By encouraging the view that AI, like the tides, is unstoppable, Silicon Valley has pulled off a public relations feat. That US politics is fatalistic about its ability to regulate what could be the most societally disruptive technology ever is worrying — especially in a republic celebrating its 250th anniversary. In practice, there is nothing inevitable about the speed and shape of AI, unless democracy renounces its say. “AI is not some deus ex machina,” says Karen Kornbluh, former director of the National AI Office. “It is humanity’s creation and our choice whether to exercise democratic control or not.”"}],[{"start":111.94999999999999,"text":"To be fair, Congress has displayed some appetite for pushback. Twice the Trump administration quietly inserted a “pre-emption” rule that would have banned AI regulation by the states. Left unsaid was that federal agencies would continue to act as cheerleaders for letting the industry do what it wants. "}],[{"start":129.5,"text":"In each case — Trump’s “big beautiful bill” last July, and again in the defence budget in December — public clamour forced the drafters to drop that two-page insertion. Congress having failed him, Trump issued an executive order that decreed what lawmakers had rejected. Among other AI industry bonuses, his March directive left responsibility for child safety to parents, not the AI chatbots. "}],[{"start":154.6,"text":"It would be wrong to describe Trump’s alliance with the broligarchs as populist. “Pluto-populist” fits better. Either way, his writ is not impregnable. Following last month’s preview of Mythos, Anthropic’s unprecedentedly powerful cyber security tool, Trump said AI platforms should seek approval for new models. This system will be voluntary, however, which makes it meaningless. Moreover, Howard Lutnick’s commerce department will be the adjudicator, which is like asking Trump to audit his own taxes."}],[{"start":185,"text":"Which brings us to China. Having done scant prep for the Beijing summit this week, Trump administration officials now say he will raise AI co-operation with Xi Jinping. This might pit Trump against Washington’s foreign policy consensus, which believes the US and China are in a zero-sum contest. But a Trump overture on AI could be helpful to Silicon Valley. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang wants to sell more advanced chips to China. Trump is frustrated with Taiwan’s stranglehold on high-end semiconductor production. Xi could win AI concessions from Trump with promises to buy more soyabeans and pledge not to shut off China’s rare earths spigot again."}],[{"start":225.3,"text":"It should escape no one’s notice that the tech sector is playing both sides of the China field. At home they are hawks. Abroad they are doves. On the one hand, they shower money on those in Washington who say that domestic regulation will help China. On the other hand, they lobby Trump to sell more of their best stuff to China. At some point, might this contradiction become a problem?"}],[{"start":247.35000000000002,"text":"Either way, Trump is unlikely to raise the broader AI risks that could be addressed only by a US-China joint effort. Any serious drive by a US president to hammer common AI principles out with China would also be a truth test. It could split Silicon Valley and the so-called Washington blob. But the prospect is hypothetical. The notion that Trump would negotiate global guardrails is as real as a chatbot’s hallucination."}],[{"start":274.05,"text":"The AI industry’s ace card with Trump is that its valuations fuel the stock market. There is thus a near-zero chance that he will permit serious regulation while he is president. Big Tech, not blue-collar America, is still very much Trump’s priority. "}],[{"start":295.5,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1778638848_7428.mp3"}