Bernie & Bannon Agree: AI is Dangerous
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What are the immediate AI extinction warnings that sparked this episode?
If this idea that AI could basically wipe out humanity becomes like what AI is known for. Um, it would be pretty hard to be the pro AI candidate if you think that it is going to wipe out all humans.
It's September fourteenth. I'm Greg Walters in Virgin Coaston and this is What a Day.
We're here to talk about the concern that AI really could kill us all in the not so distant future. What's the risk of this actually happening?
So just to back up a little bit. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Just to back up a little bit, does he have any idea how unreassuring that sounds? That was Dario Amade, the CEO of AI Juggernaut Anthropic, dancing around the question of whether his company's product is gonna bring about the end times. He was reacting to a string of recent warnings from AI industry insiders telling us that this threat is very real, including from one of his own employees, who put the odds of human extinction at over 10% in the next 10 years. Politicians from both sides of the aisle are feeling pressure to do something. Tomorrow, we're going to see a very rare spectacle. Senator Bernie Sanders, the lion of the progressive movement, sharing a stage with Steve Bannon, the MAGA bomb thrower, at what they're calling a pro human assembly.
You just don't see this kind of bipartisanship very often in Washington, DC these days. But will it be enough? Will the literal possible end of humanity spur Congress to do something? That's what I'm gonna come back to talk about in just a moment. Meanwhile President Donald Trump seems more concerned with how rising oil prices spurred by the war he started on a whim and now can't get out of, could hurt his party's odds in the midterms. He's promising that this war will end right after the vote, which, spoiler alert, he can't promise. And he's now suggesting that the US might quote, keep the oil, which doesn't make any sense because the US does not have the oil. Oil prices are surging towards one hundred and ten dollars a barrel, and Saudi Arabia just closed a key pipeline that was targeted in two places last week.
Rising prices are raising concerns about a coming clash between Trump and the Federal Reserve, and that's because higher prices are pressuring the Fed to raise interest rates. And that puts Fed Chair Kevin Walsh in a bind. He's got to choose between protecting the economy and making Donald Trump happy. And Trump is demanding that Walsh cut rates because that would spur the stock market and the economy in the near term. But it could also unleash inflation and spook the bond market, which, like a herd of water buffalo, has a tendency to trample things when it gets spooked. The Fed has to decide this week whether to raise interest rates as most investors think it will, or not. So watch that space. But we're gonna get into another crisis, and I wanna talk about whether Washington DC can save us from an AI apocalypse.
And joining me is Burgess Everett, Congressional Bureau Chief for Semaphore. Burgess, welcome to What today.
Hey Greg, thanks for having me.
So AI insiders are ringing alarms louder than I can remember hearing about a possible catastrophe. Are congressional leaders hearing all this on Capitol Hill?
Yeah, I mean they're definitely hearing it. Um honestly, like this is something that's kind of been in the in the bloodstream on Capitol Hill since about twenty twenty three when Chuck Schumer was majority leader. He started gathering together members of both parties to hear these folks out. Now What ended up happening was nothing. They heard them out but there was no bill, there's no new regulations, and so they kind of were left uh w without a conclusion to that. And so fast forward to today, um there have been these meetings with AI leaders, people have been talking about this for a while. Um there may even be a bipartisan bill that gets released, but the chances of things actually happening before the midterm elections or even after them seem pretty slim right now, especially which I'm sure we will get to, Greg, with where the president is coming down on this.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the immediate AI extinction warnings that sparked this episode?
0:00–3:58
2
How are AI insiders and former Anthropic employees quantifying the risk of human extinction?
3:58–7:47
3
Why are politicians from both parties feeling pressure to act on AI safety now?
7:47–12:09
4
What does the rare Bernie Sanders‑Steve Bannon “Pro‑Human Assembly” reveal about bipartisan AI concerns?
12:09–16:03
5
How is Congress currently responding to AI alarmism and what bills are being drafted?
16:03–20:01
6
Why do industry leaders like Anthropic, OpenAI, and XAI publicly call for regulation while fearing it won’t happen?
20:01–24:51
7
What impact will AI‑related voter concerns have on the upcoming midterm elections?
24:51–28:18
8
Will the federal government ever pass meaningful AI safeguards, or will states and the market fill the gap?
28:18–28:19