DRYDEN@drydenwtbrown
Open letter to @pmarca:
A16Z persuading Republicans that the risk of an AI "job apocalypse" is a "complete fantasy"[1] poisons the Right's ability to craft its own policy response, ceding the issue to the Left (see @SenSanders's American AI SWF today).
This is incredibly unwise.
Succinctly, my argument:
1. AI may cause significant job displacement, temporary or permanent
2. Some government response, such as UBI and/or retraining, may be necessary to maintain social stability
3. The Tech Right, led by @a16z, rules this out on principle, treating mass AI job displacement as a logical impossibility (the lump of labor fallacy)
4. @a16z is therefore steering the Right into a posture of non-preparation, ceding the entire policy response to the Left
5. AI is a major political issue today, and will likely be the biggest by 2028 as capabilities increase (scaling laws+ P(RSI))
6. The cost of surrendering this issue could be steep: the midterms, the 2028 presidency, and with the Left newly empowered, political persecution of the Tech Right
You don't have to believe AI job displacement will happen; you only have to accept it might. The voters already have. On that basis alone, the Right needs a plan NOW.
[1] @DavidGeorge83
