Jasmine Sun

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, thanks for asking.

Yeah, I've been thinking about AI populism a lot over the last few months.

I think noticing this mass movement that is sort of growing around the AI backlash and in particular, noticing how very different interest groups and very different factions, different sides of the aisle are coming together to protest AI.

And so, you know, when I'm in Washington, D.C., I'll notice that there are

family first conservatives sitting with antitrust people, sitting with environmentalists, people who would never be working side by side, but who have united in order to push for AI regulation.

And that was sort of what really got me thinking about AI populism.

In terms of how big of a force it is in the US right now, I would say that it's not a primary force in American politics yet, but it is rising extremely quickly.

And so one of the best

research polling that's been done on this topic is from David Schwartz Blue Rose Research.

And what he's shown in his polling is that among like, you know, a list of 40 different issues that American voters might care about, AI ranks 29 out of 39.

So it's not super high, but it has risen in salience the faster than any other issue over the last year.

And so in terms of how quickly it is entering the broader political conversation, I think AI is rising really fast.

And the other thing that I'm starting to notice is that AI is not just a separate issue.

Like most people who are, you know, thinking about AI, they may not have particular opinions on, you know, which model is the best or should we do chip export controls?

They're really seeing AI as part of these broader conversations around affordability, economic mobility, geopolitics.

And those are issues that do rank very high on Americans' list of concerns.

And so if AI is seen as, you know, a bogeyman or very tied to conversations around land use and their neighborhoods, around economic mobility and whether you're going to have a job, then AI will be a much bigger part of the political conversation than we would otherwise expect.

Right?

I think like I think it's because they're tied together.