The question is hard to answer because the benefits of the technology are unevenly distributed and can often feel overhyped. One reason is what some have called “jagged intelligence,” where A.I. fails at incredibly simple tasks even as it excels in specific areas. So when some in Silicon Valley predict an impending jobpocalypse, while others view the industry’s claims as overblown, it’s hardly surprising that the public mood around A.I. is darkening. In a Gallup survey from last year, 80 percent of American adults thought the government should regulate A.I., even if doing so means slower progress, a view that was shared by Democrats and Republicans alike. Even young Americans who historically embraced new technologies are angrier and more skeptical.
Dismissing A.I. entirely would be a mistake. The technology can help diagnose diseases, predict protein folding, improve farming, forecast disasters better, design new materials, accelerate scientific and drug discovery and power robots in dangerous environments to improve human safety (such as in space, firefighting and minefields).
Yet how technology spreads is never inevitable. If A.I. is viewed as benefiting the few at the expense of the majority, then the public will rage against the machine. And A.I. won’t be able to make our lives better in the long run if it cannot survive in the short term. The real challenge, then, isn’t whether the United States or China will build an overwhelming, insurmountable advantage over the other. It’s whether either can figure out how to realize the benefits of A.I. without ripping apart its social fabric. Neither has found the answer yet.
Silicon Valley tech executives and policymakers across the country are waking up to that fact. States have introduced dozens of bills this year to put safety and privacy guardrails around A.I. The Trump administration issued a new executive order that seeks to give the government more oversight over new models before they’re released to the public. Companies like OpenAI are starting to come around to the idea that strong safety rules can help reverse growing public opposition. But there is still no clear consensus on how the United States should move forward. We know big disruptions are coming, and they’re coming fast as A.I. capabilities advance faster than policy response. We need bigger ideas to fix what may soon break.
To get to the other end of the tightrope, we need radical and incremental solutions alike. Here’s one to start: a populist A.I. agenda that treats the technology as a public project. Just as NASA made space a national mission rather than a private one, the government should now do the same for A.I. to ensure that its benefits reach the public, not just the companies building it. Here are some concrete ways to do that:
One, treat some A.I. profits as a shared resource and distribute them directly to citizens. This can be in the form of a sovereign wealth fund, seeded by contributions from A.I. companies in the form of stock or cash. Prior models for this include Singapore’s Temasek, seeded in 1974 with equity in state-linked companies, and Australia’s Future Fund, which turned budget surpluses and government shares in a privatized telecom into a permanent endowment for future generations. Another format would be to reinvest A.I. profits into the younger generation, whose members risk being displaced before their careers even begin, and teach them how to use these tools. After all, the fruits of the age of A.I. are not the outcome of individual companies alone, but are built on the knowledge that society has accumulated over centuries.
