Alex Bores

The results on Election Day showed that voters don’t just care about one issue when it comes to AI’s influence in our lives.

Countless Democratic candidates stood up to the AI industry and executives trying to shape our elections - and voters backed them by electing them to office.

Every AI company is trying to fully automate AI research; to allow the AIs to build the next AI.

This is called Recursive Self Improvement (RSI).

OpenAI says they are on track to do so by March 2028.

Anthropic employees say they are on track to do so by 2027.

The METR report below suggests they are likely right.

This is a bad idea given current technology. Any mistake or misalignment in current AIs could be multiplied in each generation.

We don't get another election before AI companies reach this threshold.

Congress should ban RSI, this year if possible.

This is a remarkably consensus opinion, supported in various versions by:
-Bernie Sanders
-Steve Bannon
-Ralph Nader
-Glenn Beck
-Republican and Democratic attorneys general
-Whistleblower Daniel Kokotajlo
-Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio
-Humans First
-Open Markets Institute
-Ezra Klein
-Arvind Narayanan (a Princeton computer scientist known for arguing that “AI is a normal technology”)

The exact mechanism can be debated. The ban doesn't have to be permanent either (see below for both). This is not the only thing we have to do in regards to AI, far from it! But it is urgent.

Congress must ban RSI.

On Tuesday, AI regulation was on the ballot in statewide races and local communities around the country.

43 of 44 communities voted for bans or restrictions on data centers. That’s a message about control, and that’s democracy working.

Voters want a voice in how AI is developed, and they don’t want a few companies racing to build it to decide for them.

In Texas, @GinaHinojosaTX became the first Democratic Governor in over three decades - running on a strong platform of reining in data center development and being on the side of people in AI.

What do last night’s resounding midterm wins for Democrats tell us about the future of AI?

Here are some of my initial takeaways:

1. AI was a key issue for voters this year - with 56% saying in exit polls that it was crucial or a major factor for them.

2. Voters want their leaders to listen to them. In swing states all over the country - despite completely different demographics, race contexts, and odds - candidates who laid out clear plans to give communities a say in AI won their races.

3. Leading the Future is so toxic that even as it moved away from spending money in competitive races, it managed to lose a “safe” investment in the South Carolina Senate race. Annie Andrews won by over 4 points despite over $2 million in spending against her by the AI industry Super PAC.

4. The road to 2028 starts today. In order to maintain voters’ trust and avoid catastrophic risk, we need a unified baseline around AI safety in the Democratic Party. If you’re with us, follow along at @WhoDecidesAI.

Wow! @LeadingFutureAI was so scared of voters that they only spent money in races they thought were not competitive.

But they were so toxic that they managed to make a sure race competitive - and lose!