Today, left-wing politician Bernie Sanders shares the stage with Maga ideologue Steve Bannon.
These are two people who are as far apart politically as is generally possible.
What brought them together? The threat of artificial intelligence.
The conference they attend takes place in downtown Washington DC and is called the Pro-Human Assembly. It brings together politicians, actors and scientists who are concerned about the rapid technological development. Behind the meeting is the Future of Life Institute, where the Swedish physics professor Max Tegmark sits as chairman.
In addition to Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon, 27-year-old Jacob Coxon, a defected researcher at the AI firm Anthropic who sparked last week's debate with a post on X, is speaking.
"Those who build AI truly believe that the technology could kill us all before the end of the decade," he wrote.
Shortly thereafter, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced via a post on the company's website that development should be slowed down, and was supported by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk, the world's richest person.
It is unclear if it has ever happened before that some of the world's largest companies asked to be more regulated.
The fear is that AI will reach recursive self-improvement – that is, it will build more intelligent versions of itself, causing it to evolve at a rate that is too fast and advanced for humans to keep up with.
If that happens, it is impossible to predict what might happen. Many assessors believe that we are still nowhere near that development, but the mere direction entails risks.
Dario Amodei writes that the entire internet could be hijacked by AI swarms within six to twelve months, others warn that the technology could be used to develop biological warfare agents.
A few kilometers from the conference is the White House. There sits the world's most powerful man and has a completely different view of technology.
"The only protection one needs against AI is a strong and smart president with a high IQ," writes the president on Truth Social.
The progress of AI companies is a big reason why US stock markets hit records this year. So far, the country is ahead of China in terms of technological development, giving the US an economic and military edge.
It is something that Donald Trump wants to guard against. But recent AI opposition may put a damper on that.
On the one hand, there is massive criticism of the data centers that are built in the USA and that are needed for the technology to improve. It is one of the few issues that unites many right-wing and left-wing voters in the country. In more and more states, construction is now being stopped and some politicians who have been positive are starting to change sides.
China doesn't have that problem, but can basically build as many data centers as they want thanks to being a dictatorship.
The second American obstacle is the criticism of technological development and the current requirements for regulations. According to a 2025 report from Stanford University, 39 percent of all Americans believed that the advantages of AI outweighed the disadvantages, while the same figure in China was 83 percent.
"There is a sick conspiracy theory going on against AI and data centers and the only people who are happy about it are China," writes Donald Trump.
The president is not alone in thinking so. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that it is the responsibility of companies to limit themselves, not Congress.
- If we declare a state of emergency and regulate AI, we will lose to China, and that is a threat to all Americans.
Another critic of the demands for regulation is David Sacks, who until March 2026 was the White House's special adviser on crypto and AI issues and still has a role in the administration.
In a post on X, he writes that the warnings are exaggerated and that the companies are trying to shift responsibility, since they are criminally liable for the models they build.
On September 24, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will meet in Washington DC, in a meeting that could become tense. The US president has hinted that the storm of criticism at home may have been influenced by outside forces.
Incidentally, DN tried to enter the AI-critical conference today.
In the end, we were denied via an email that can't have been anything other than AI generated.
"Our decision reflects the specific composition and needs of this particular gathering, rather than a valuation of the importance of your work or your commitment to a human-centered future."
