Will K. (4:11)

All right, Brad, thanks so much for joining us.

Brad Carson (4:14)

My honor to be with you.

Will K. (4:16)

Will. So you have had quite a career path. You served in Congress, you served in the Iraq war, you served in the Obama administration, you served as a college president most recently, and now you're doing work in the AI space. So can you just start by taking me through that path that you've had and how it brought you to the work that you're doing today?

Brad Carson (4:37)

Well, I was a young person. I really wanted to be involved in politics. I believed it was the most important profession one could pursue. And so I was elected to Congress in my early 30s and served two terms there before running unsuccessfully for the US Senate. And so since then, I tried to do interesting work, always trying to find what to me was the most important challenge our country faced and to try to find a way to get into it. I was really lucky that probably almost a decade ago now I became interested in artificial intelligence and started tracking it a bit. I'd go to conferences, get invited to things, and of course, as it's become more prominent over the last three or four years, I've been kind of at the front and center of a lot of the work. And so three years ago, I formed a group called Americans for Responsible Innovation, it's a bipartisan nonprofit that advocates for reasonable guardrails and artificial intelligence. And then I left the university presidency eight or nine months ago to do this full time. So I feel like I've been in the fight for a long time.

Will K. (5:38)

And you also, in addition to the Americans for Responsible Innovation, you're also involved with the Public First Action pac, is that right?

Brad Carson (5:46)

That's right. That's a network of super PACs that support candidates who believe in reasonable guardrails on AI.

Will K. (5:53)

Can you tell me a little bit about how you wear each of those hats and how your work with each of those organizations differs and maybe overlaps as well?

Brad Carson (6:03)

Sure, they're in the same subject matter, but they're legally distinct and operationally different. So Ari is a 501C4, a C3 as well. And we focus really on educating members of Congress about artificial intelligence, advocating for or against various policies that are there. The group is now almost 40 people. And so we're the largest AI group in Washington, D.C. and we've been very successful, even though we're only a couple of years old. The super PAC, which is called Public First Action, is a C4, has a couple of super PACs underneath it, one supporting Democratic candidates, one supporting Republican candidates. It got started because we were watching what was happening in American politics, and this is entirely lamentable. It's not a good thing for our democracy with these gigantic super PACs are coming in and. And owning certain policy areas. We saw in the last cycle with crypto, where they spent more than $100 million to kind of reform Congress in a way favorable to their industry. And concerning to us was how the very same people were going to do that for artificial intelligence, try to fight any kind of rules or regulations about it. And so it's not a good thing for American democracy that these super PACs even exist. But if they do, means you have to fight back. So we've raised, or hope to raise about $75 million to combat $125 million super PAC. That's really against any kind of rules and regulations about AI supporting candidates who we think are willing to support reasonable, bipartisan, sensible guardrails of.

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Will K. (9:55)

I'm glad that you brought up crypto as well, because I think that is another space that has emerged, at least to the national consciousness in the last few years, where the partisan lines weren't immediately clear. I think for crypto those lines are becoming clearer, especially under the Trump administration. But for AI, I don't think they are in the same place and in fact I don't know if they ever will be given just the breadth of the issues that it touches. But in your work, you work with both Republicans and Democrats, do you see certain issues related to AI resonating more with lawmakers on one side or the other? Or what are some of the concerns that you are hearing from each party?

Brad Carson (10:34)

Both parties have deep concern about it and they're related, but they sometimes articulate it in slightly different vocabulary, if you will. And so, for example, Republicans are often concerned about the transhumanist aspect of this or the idea that humans might be replaced by some kind of superior species, if you will. That's like the kind of religious framing some of those people do. This is folks like Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, others like that. And so they often phrase it in this kind of religious terms. You know, Democrats are often concerned more about what's happening at the dinner table, such as labor market effects, is this going to spike? Unemployment, Are my kids going to be able to get a job? What's the future of this technology in the military? And then both parties are very concerned, I think, about kids safety and children being led into self harm, or AI psychosis more broadly. And so what we really see is a wide bipartisan consensus about concern and hope. What AI can be. It has some real promise, and people recognize that. And really the opposition to it is isolated in a few precincts of Silicon Valley that think they can really billionaires who think they can, like, push a policy of no regulation at all. So this is unlike crypto. This has much more widespread interest. Crypto is kind of a niche interest to people.

Will K. (12:03)

Right.

Brad Carson (12:04)

AI is something that everybody cares about.

Will K. (12:08)

Yeah. And I know we're headed into the midterms. I mean, just we're talking here on March 4th, and just last night, we had the first primary elections of the 2026 midterms. AI is already being talked about as a major campaign issue for several candidates in some of the biggest races. And I'm sure that's only going to increase. Zooming out, though, a little bit. Just my impression of somebody looking at this from the outside in, it feels like the start of 2026 here. We may look back on it as a kind of watershed moment in artificial intelligence, both in the development of the technology, but also in the way that it's talked about as a political issue and on the national level. And I'm wondering what your perspective is on that. Do you feel like we are kind of in a moment where things are rapidly accelerating and the need for the kind of guardrails and regulation that you're advocating for is particularly pressing?

Brad Carson (12:59)

No, I think it is. I was talking to one of the nation's best pollsters last week, and we're talking. The question was, do people care about artificial intelligence policy as a voting issue? And he said that the issue is still not the top matter for most people, but it's rising in salience faster than any issue he's seen in his political polling career. So I think by next year, by 2028, certainly this is going to be one of the major issues in American politics. And I think you've already seen it last night, elections in Texas, North Carolina, AI was an issue there. Data centers are front and center for lots of people across the nation too. So this is only going to grow. And it's kind of remarkable because in 2024, the election cycle, not a single candidate of either party ever mentioned the words artificial intelligence. I don't think 2028 is going to see a repeat of that.

Will K. (13:59)

Yeah, I share that impression for sure. My sense being that there may not be a huge appetite for significant legislation under a Republican controlled Congress and a Republican controlled White House. So with control of one chamber or potentially both being in the balance here, do you see or in your conversations with candidates, do you see an AI regulation platform having the kind of breakthrough

Will K. (14:24)

power this year that it might, let's

Will K. (14:26)

say in 2028 as well?

Brad Carson (14:29)

It's going to be hard this year, an election year. And so I don't have great optimism for huge change. Although I do think there are some smaller things that are impactful for AI, like putting into law the center for AI Standards and Innovation. There's a bill called the Create act that allows universities and nonprofits more access to compute power, which is right now very much concentrated in the very large industry players. There's some kids safety measures that are being talked about that could be, I think, fruitful. But I think we're going to have to wait probably a year or two before you see everyone come to the table and talk about what a comprehensive framework might look like.

Will K. (15:14)

You talked a bit about the role of Silicon Valley in pushing against some of this regulation. Another perspective that I've heard, I think that some in Silicon Valley might share this, but I don't think it's exclusive to them, is that we are in

Will K. (15:29)

a race against our adversaries in developing this technology and that it's more important

Will K. (15:34)

that we win the race than we necessarily put up a bunch of speed bumps right now.

Will K. (15:40)

Have you heard that perspective and what

Will K. (15:42)

do you think of it?

John Law (15:45)

Hey everybody, this is John, executive producer for Tangle. We hope you enjoyed this preview of our latest episode. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber and you are enjoying this content and would like to finish it, you can go to readtangle.com and sign up for a newsletter subscription or you can sign up for a podcast subscription or a bundled subscription which gets you both the podcast and the newsletter and unlocks the rest of this episode as well as ad free daily podcasts more Friday editions, Sunday editions, bonus content, interviews and so much more. Most importantly, we just want to say thank you so much for your support. We're working hard to bring you much more content and more offerings, so stay tuned. I will join you again for the daily podcast. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'.

Will K. (16:36)

All.

John Law (16:39)

Peace.

Isaac Saul (16:41)

Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive Producer is John Law. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Sarah Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsey Knuth and Bailey Sal. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.

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