Democrats are losing AI because of a big messaging problem

Democrats are losing the AI conversation by focusing on risks instead of economic transformation opportunities, argues former Obama aide Gaurab Bansal.

Democrats have an opportunity now to pursue an alternative path and offer our country a national project that centers AI advances as the critical innovation for a prosperous, healthy, and safe future for all Americans.  Gaurab Bansal is executive director of Responsible Innovation Labs and former deputy assistant to President Barack Obama.

This should be a wake-up call for Democrats, who have failed to seize the opportunity so far to speak not only to AI's risks, but to its potential for broad economic transformation. Democrats have asked plenty of questions about AI’s safety, its biases and its effect on the job market.  

But so far, Democrats have treated these as separate problems to manage rather than as pieces of a larger question: how do we shape this transformation so it creates opportunity for everyone, not just profits for a few? That's the conversation Americans deserve.