Political corruption is often perceived as transactional: Cash flows to a politician, who then proactively does something for a donor. But there is an equally pervasive kind of corruption that’s more difficult to see, because it isn’t necessarily in campaign finance reports that document the exchange of money.
It is a corruption of inaction — and it may end up being the central force in our government’s decision to ignore the purported threat of tech billionaires’ artificial intelligence murdering us all.
“Corruption of inaction” is a term invoked by Colorado’s Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in our final episode of The Lever ’s new season of Master Plan — and you can see that stealthy form of corruption in both parties’ reaction to apocalyptic new warnings about AI’s dangers.
The AI Crisis And The Corruption Of Inaction
Donald Trump and the GOP offer the most obvious example: Bankrolled by tech oligarchs and personally invested in their AI technologies, Republicans are opposing the whole idea of new regulatory guardrails on AI technologies, which — by tech companies’ own admission — have gotten out of control. Money went into MAGA, and now a promise of inaction is coming out.
Democrats offer a subtler illustration of the same phenomenon. In a story headlined “Democratic advisers are warning their candidates not to go too hard at AI,” Politico reports: “Democratic consultants are privately encouraging their battleground candidates to avoid talking about artificial intelligence regulations out of fear that powerful tech groups will unleash a tidal wave of spending against them .”
The GOP’s corruption of inaction is brazen, in your face, and enthusiastic. “They can self-regulate,” said Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. “They don’t need the government to tell them to slow it down.”
By contrast, Democrats’ corruption of inaction is fear-based and cast as a necessary compromise with tech oligarchs aiming to buy the midterm elections.
“We do need to be able to make sure that we’re regulating [AI] and addressing those real fears,” Politico quotes one Democratic strategist saying. “[But] we don’t want AI money coming in.”
In Republicans’ case, the corruption of inaction takes a brazen form that appeals to the anger of anti-government conservatives: theirs is a proud promise to block legislation.
In Democrats’ case, the corruption of inaction takes a more discreet form that at once appeals to liberals’ fetish for pragmatism while banking on nobody following the details. Democrats offer rhetorical acknowledgment of AI’s risks, then offer odes to political reality, and then put the fix in. In this case, as The Lever reports, their congressional leadership stacks the party’s AI commission with Democratic lawmakers bankrolled by tech oligarchs.
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The Quiet Corruption Behind Washington’s AI Inaction
Aggregated summary from an independent source. Read the original at LeverNews.