AI WIll Disrupt Everything in Life, Including Political Campaigns - But Government Regulation Will Not Solve Either

Trust the Voters, and Trust Markets, to Address all the Changes AI Will Bring

I’ve had a couple recent interactions, as well as my experience in the 2024 election cycle, that has me thinking even more about the impact of Artificial Intelligence in political campaigns and in broader society.

I recently participated in a deep-dive interview with the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) about the use of AI in political campaigns, and how (if at all) it should be regulated.

The initial survey and follow up interview with AAPC on the topic helped me further crystallize my own thinking on the topic. I have always been 1.) a Libertarian-Leaning Republican in my personal outlook, 2.) a First Amendment Absolutist, and 3.) an early adopter in new technology in political campaigns.

So you may not be surprised that I told AAPC I am not troubled by the use of AI in political campaigns, I don’t think the government should regulate it (or at worst regulate very lightly), and at best, industry-backed standards should govern the use, not micro-managing laws and regulations of the FEC, the FPPC (in California), and other equivalents in other states and localities. I ultimately trust voters to figure out what is appropriate or not and reward and punish political campaigns that use AI appropriately...or not.

More broadly in society, I recently read an article in Axios that warned of the coming “white collar job bloodbath” due to AI.

The article centered around an interview with Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, one of the leading AI companies and the makers of high-end AI models like Claude.

Amodei argues that the disruption in the near horizon for white-collar workers from AI will be immense, and that the government should be doing more to prepare society for it, even suggesting an “AI Tax” to support displaced workers.

Pardon me if I think such an idea, or that government has any useful role to play in this challenge, is bunk. And that’s not to be heartless about disruption...I think the predictions in the article are likely to be accurate, or in that range. I personally worry that some of my kids, who are all early to mid-level white collars workers (except our youngest), could see and face this disruption.

But I just can’t see that any government program, rather than the power of markets and people seeking their own best interest (as they perceive them), billions of times over will address this, just as past technological innovations have disrupted or even destroyed whole industries before.

Over time, the creative innovation, destruction, and reinvention caused by the power of markets has always outlasted government’s ability to “solve” problems or manage the economy.

Some companies will respond to AI by slashing their white-collar workforce, perhaps, but otherwise continue the status quo. Others will do that, but also double down on AI trainers or use their increased productivity to further expand, and repurpose workers to newly configured business models.  The companies that manage the AI revolution well will explode in growth and replace today’s workforce with tomorrow's workforce.

Will it be disruptive. Yes, just as cars disrupted the horse-drawn buggy industry. Are the scales comparable? Who knows? Can the government do anything about it? I doubt it.

The premise behind Amodei’s plan is ultimately that a Company which can produce X of its product or service, suddenly able to produce these X units with 50% of the workforce, will be satisfied continuously producing X, and stand pat. When in fact, we know, some companies will reinvest those savings to build toward making two times X in their product, and so on.

Just as in every past disruption, big or small, we ultimately must trust the power of markets, and the trillions of collective economic and personal decisions that billions of people make, which are in fact the market, to re-invent, renew, and thrive.

Government “solving” this challenge with a new tax and a new worker protection program will only slow down the solution that has always worked before and will work again.