One mistake about politics, in my opinion, that I see people make on Twitter is the assertion that, yes, people don't like AI, but they're not yet voting on it (seeing that it is not something that a majority of people say is driving them to vote, or it's not un the top five or even ten issues for them). This misunderstands how politics works. Questions like abortion, gun rights, LGBTQ, and many other cultural issues have never been in the top five for many voters. It's simply a question of whether there are any single-issue voters, especially people you can poach from the other party, who would vote your way on these questions. That's why positions like anti-gun control and pro-life, which rarely command a majority viewpoint, are adopted by lots of politicians. It's about stitching together intense voters, even if they're a small fraction of the electorate. When it comes to AI, even 3% or 5% of the electorate who vote on the question of AI is vital to your coalition and could be outcome determinative. To the extent those voters are people who are switching to your party from their traditional home, they can really make the margin of difference. AI will probably never be an issue where more than 50% say it's why they're going to the polls. It doesn't have to be for it to be extremely powerful.

Legit a major problem, can attest. The left needs to take AI seriously. If it's all just a "hustle," the left will be caught unprepared for the defining political challenge of our time. It will a world-historical error.

I would say rush to this article, which I'm doing now. Anything by Stephen Biddle is certain to be one of the most trenchant pieces of military thinking you'll ever read.

Interesting and well-done post by the @forethought_org that is a real contribution to the debate on autonomous weapons. newsletter.forethought.org/p…

A lot of discussion about Anthropic's proposal for an AI framework. Let me start by saying, it's hard to put pen to paper and offer a detailed vision for a comprehensive framework. Credit to Anthropic for their serious effort. That said, parts of the draft raise real concerns. Unfortunately the bill text that’s circulating does not meet the minimum requirements necessary for federal guardrails to keep AI development safe. Critically, the proposed bill allows developers to set safety standards and loosen those same standards over time, leaving AI companies to write their own rules. This represents a status quo that we know doesn't work. The responsibility for crafting binding federal safety standards must rest with the government. Those standards should be strengthened as AI systems become more capable. The bill also fails to provide the government a role in testing or inspection authority, instead depending on private markets that are not yet mature to hold AI companies accountable. Under the bill, evaluators self-certify, registration carries no power to deny or revoke, and the bill bars any agency standard from being “a condition of engagement.” It's also worth raising issues with the bill’s preemption provisions. The bill would preempt existing protections in multiple states. There’s also no sunset on preemption and no condition tying preemption to the strength of federal guardrails. Under our own proposal, preemption is used only as a floor, not a ceiling for AI safeguards. 1/4

An important piece. Our mania on drones is a lot of groupthink, I offer up controversially. If China is the pacing threat, we need a lot of the old-fashioned kind of stuff. Drones, Missiles, and the U.S. Munitions Shortage cnas.org/publications/report… via @CNASdc