Chapter 1: What is AI populism and why does it matter?
Bankless Nation, we are here with Jasmine Sun. She writes about AI, technology and politics.
Chapter 2: How could AI impact the 2028 election?
She is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and recently has a New York Times opinion piece on AI and the permanent underclass, a phrase we are all too familiar with here in the world of crypto. She's also the AI of the AI populism series on her sub-sack, jasmine.news. Jasmine, welcome to Bankless.
Thanks so much for having me.
Jasmine, you put together a definition for AI populism. You wrote it, a worldview in which AI is viewed not only as a normal technology, but as an elite political project to be resisted. This is really what we want to explore here with you today on the show. Kind of want to ask the question, and maybe we can start with this.
How big is AI populism as a political issue domestically here in the United States?
Chapter 3: What role do data centers play in the AI backlash?
And we kind of want to get to, do we think AI populism will be a relevant issue in the 2028 election? So maybe we can start with that first question. Just how big do you think AI populism is in the world of politics?
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.
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Chapter 4: What is the Jobpacalypse debate about?
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.
So it's rising fast, but it's still 29th in the list of issues. So there are other, you know, the top five issues got to be like the economy, jobs, inflation, that type of thing. And yet we see some of the most savvy politicians that we have in the U.S. that seem to be doubling down on AI populist messaging, maybe tripling down even.
Bernie Sanders, it seems like, has made it sort of a cornerstone piece for him. In other words, he's kind of like betting heavily on the topic of AI populism and putting a lot of his chips in. Why? Like, is he, if it's only 29th, wouldn't people rather hear about inflation and jobs and other things that are core to the Sanders message? Why is he betting so hard?
Right? I think like I think it's because they're tied together.
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Chapter 5: Is there a future for labor in the AI era?
I mean, I have the Blue Rose Research pulled up next to me. Number the top five issues, like you say, it's cost of living, the economy, corruption, inflation and health care. Right. And that's kind of roughly the issues we'd expect. My guess is that those five issues probably haven't changed all that much over the past, you know, 20, 30 years. My guess would be two things.
One is if AI is a thing that you are going to blame for the economy, for the cost of living. for like corruption, inflation, healthcare, then you're able to tie it into the issues that Americans do really care about, right?
Chapter 6: How is power inequality shaping AI policy?
And when, you know, you have these AI CEOs saying AI is going to take all the jobs, when you have these questions about whether we're in a bubble or like the fact that like, you know, I think it was something like
a huge fraction, like 30% or something of US GDP growth in 2025 was from data center and AI related investments, then it means that your questions about cost of living and the economy are very tied to AI. And then the other thing that I think is going on with Bernie is I think there is an element of opportunism, right?
And you don't just see that from Bernie, you also see it from other politicians as you may have been saying the same message on cost of living and the economy and the billionaires for like year on year on year on year. But now you have this new force that's showing up and it's and you know, the leaders are also promising it's going to change everything. It's going to take all the jobs.
We are like the only thing that matters in the economy now. And so like maybe if you feel like your messaging wasn't resonating before in terms of getting people to support universal health care or like a higher minimum wage or whatever. AI is like a brand new shiny reason that to sort of build support for the policies that you might have already wanted to pass.
You see that from people like Bernie. You also see that from folks who want to, say, increase speech regulation and censorship or content moderation for tech platforms, where there are folks who are already very interested in applying stronger age and kid safety laws or stronger speech regulations on tech platforms.
And now that AI has showed up, it's become kind of an extra reason to push for the thing that people are already pushing for. So I do think that AI matters, but I also think that a lot of politicians are being pretty opportunistic about, you know, pointing to the shiny new thing and saying, maybe this is a reason to do what I've been saying all along.
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Chapter 7: What strategies can help people stay relevant in an AI-driven world?
I kind of wonder if this opportunism is actually going to stick in the hearts and minds of the American people though, right? So there was something that we recall, at least Bankless listeners will recall being kind of crypto of Elizabeth Warren and some politicians tried something similar with kind of an anti-crypto policy. This was in 2023, 2024.
Listeners will recall kind of a campaign slogan, something she promoted. Elizabeth Warren is building the anti-crypto army.
Right after the fall of FTX, which was highly opportune of a time to broadcast that message.
Yeah, it was, you know, Sam Beckman Freed and you have kind of the corrupt crypto bros and this weird technology that no one really understands. And there was a bubble and there's NFTs and everyone hates it anyway. And so...
there seemed to be an effort, it was somewhat contrived, an opportunistic effort to lump all of these things together and have kind of a theory of everything message around populism, some of the campaign messages for Elizabeth Warren. But it didn't seem to really stick or hold. Like even among, obviously the crypto people didn't enjoy this, that she was building an anti-crypto army.
But I think like, the normal people just looked at it and were like, huh?
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of wealth inequality in the context of AI?
Like anti-crypto army, I care about jobs and the economy and inflation. Like, what are you talking about? And that messaging didn't really stick. And I'm wondering if that will be a repeat story with this AI populist opportunism that we're seeing, that the politicians are trying to group things that just like don't exactly belong together in a voter's mind.
Yeah, I mean, I could see why you would think that. And I do think that looking at, you know, parallels to crypto are definitely interesting. I think that AI has some pretty distinct differences. One is it's just a far bigger part of the economy than crypto ever was. Like crypto was not driving like 30 or 40 percent of GDP growth over the course of a year.
Crypto is not, you know, yes, there's like Bitcoin mining operations, but these are not showing up in neighborhoods as much as data centers are. most people at their work are not being forced or encouraged to use crypto as part of their jobs, nor is there as high of consumer adoption. Like even from people's own volitional use of crypto, that was always a niche thing.
It was, crypto is very hard and confusing to use. And my guess is that most Americans never really got in the habit of using crypto on a regular basis, whereas ChatGPT is like the fastest growing app in human history, right? And so I think that in terms of the salience of AI to a lot of normal people, it does feel like a more relevant thing. There are also other differences.
Like I think the AI leaders have been very different than crypto leaders in their messaging. The way that you described the Warren dynamic, which is not something I'm personally familiar with. I didn't follow crypto quite as closely, but it sounds like Elizabeth Warren was forging one narrative and people in the crypto industry and maybe many crypto advocates had another perspective.
In AI, one thing that's really interesting and that has always been really interesting about AI is that the risks that the populists are talking about are many of the same risks that people in the industry are talking about, right? Like Dario Amadei is the one saying that 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs are going to go away by 2030.
And so that adds a lot of credibility to the message when the people building the technology are saying, actually, that's true. Like this stuff is going to hurt you. It is going to take your job.
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