It does not take an expert to notice that free-market fundamentalism has very few principled adherents in either the Democratic or Republican Party, nor that fear or dislike of AI is a rare issue that unites voters on both sides of the aisle.
Not to be overly bleak, but there are numerous issues on which the public has been fairly united but the government has pursued the exact opposite of their desired policy slate:
The most timely example is American voters and war in the Middle East. Obama ran on noninterventionism, but produced the Afghanistan troop surge and the Libya intervention. Trump II ran on “Mean Tweets, World Peace”, but ended up with the Iran War, which shows no signs of stopping despite being despised on both sides of the aisle.
A secondary example[1], probably more pertinent to British readers, is the issue of immigration. The multi-cycle stint of the Tories saw them repeatedly running on restrictionism, but continuing to deliver record immigration numbers after being reelected.
I would expect, further, that if some narrow group started out with outsized access to AGI, they would be much more effective at inducing this kind of outcome than existing lobbying groups are. Imagine if a single company could have one hundred interns in a datacenter studying the likes and dislikes of each nameless congressman on Capitol Hill, tailoring a bill to each of their preferences.
I agree that leaders can do unpopular things in a democracy, but I think it is much harder in a democracy to pursue wildly unpopular things if people feel it in their daily lives, and it becomes the top issue for them as voters. So leaders can get away with some unpopular steps in foreign policy, until voters feel it in their pockets. As a case in point, the one aspect that governments do seem sensitive to is gas prices and stock market.
Not to be overly bleak, but there are numerous issues on which the public has been fairly united but the government has pursued the exact opposite of their desired policy slate:
The most timely example is American voters and war in the Middle East. Obama ran on noninterventionism, but produced the Afghanistan troop surge and the Libya intervention. Trump II ran on “Mean Tweets, World Peace”, but ended up with the Iran War, which shows no signs of stopping despite being despised on both sides of the aisle.
Relatedly, both parties are now more unfavorable than favorable towards Israel, but congressmen, both Democratic and Republican, are overwhelmingly in favor of more aid and greater deference.
A secondary example[1], probably more pertinent to British readers, is the issue of immigration. The multi-cycle stint of the Tories saw them repeatedly running on restrictionism, but continuing to deliver record immigration numbers after being reelected.
I would expect, further, that if some narrow group started out with outsized access to AGI, they would be much more effective at inducing this kind of outcome than existing lobbying groups are. Imagine if a single company could have one hundred interns in a datacenter studying the likes and dislikes of each nameless congressman on Capitol Hill, tailoring a bill to each of their preferences.
I’ll give one from the Right, since my first example was more Leftie-aligned and I want to underscore that neither side is safe from this phenomenon.
I agree that leaders can do unpopular things in a democracy, but I think it is much harder in a democracy to pursue wildly unpopular things if people feel it in their daily lives, and it becomes the top issue for them as voters. So leaders can get away with some unpopular steps in foreign policy, until voters feel it in their pockets. As a case in point, the one aspect that governments do seem sensitive to is gas prices and stock market.