Could Abdul El-Sayed’s plan for AI companies stave off catastrophe? | Jerel Ezell

The Michigan Senate candidate is calling for public ownership and other reforms, offering a potential antidote to ideological gridlock The Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, occupies a strange but increasingly common place in modern American politics. He’s praised by progressives, begrudgingly tolerated by moderate Democrats and largely demonized by Republicans. He’s also uniquely positioned to forge an all-too-elusive thread of political kinship between these perpetually-at-odds groups with his bold but contentious plan for reining in AI, called AI Under Democracy. And it couldn’t come at a better time.

According to a poll conducted this summer by NBC News, 70% of Americans said that they were more worried than excited about AI, a shocking reversal from just a couple of years ago. Another poll from Quinnipiac several weeks ago found that 73% of Americans are concerned about AI posing a threat to human existence. AI Under Democracy was revealed several weeks before the Michigan Democratic primary. At the time, El-Sayed was still a relative underdog, a physician with threadbare political credentials and views that