I'd Rather We Not Build Killer Robots At All

These people are crazy.

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Senator Ted Cruz has appointed himself America’s explainer-in-chief on artificial intelligence , and this week he went to Politico to make the case for letting the industry do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whoever it wants. Here’s his argument, in full: “I’d rather they be American killer robots and not Chinese killer robots.”

I have heard Ted Cruz say a lot of stupid, crazy shit over the years. That might be the craziest thing I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth.

Here’s a novel idea, Senator: maybe we shouldn’t build killer robots at all.

Let me be clear about where I’m coming from, because I’m not a Luddite and I’m not somebody standing outside this industry throwing rocks at it. I started an AI company. I sold it last year. I have skin in this game. And I genuinely believe nobody is un-inventing this — the technology is here, it’s going to keep developing, and pretending otherwise is a fantasy. I also have zero love for the Chinese government. They are oppressive to their own people. So is ours. And I don’t want them winning some AI arms race that kicks off a new Cold War.

But the answer to that is not to strip every guardrail off American AI development and call it patriotism. The answer is not to let entire industries get wiped out, let millions of jobs get destroyed, let data centers hollow out towns across this country the same way fracking did a decade ago, poisoning our air, our water, and our quiet. The answer is a framework — one that lets this technology actually improve people’s lives without doing it on the backs of workers, the environment, and our entire way of life.

Instead we get Ted Cruz doing a bit about killer robots with an American flag pin on.

Because that’s all this is — a bit. The red scare talking point is not analysis, it’s a product. It was written by Big Tech and it’s being sold to you by politicians who cash their checks. China, China, China. Be scared of the communists on the other end of the wire. Don’t look too closely at what’s happening on this end.

We’ve run this play before. The same fear did an incredible amount of work convincing us to build an enormous nuclear arsenal that has accomplished nothing except putting the entire world permanently at risk, and we are still living with the consequences of those Cold War decisions right now. The government still spends money on it. What the government cannot seem to find money for is making sure you don’t go bankrupt when you get sick, or that the bridge you drive over is safe, or that a working family can afford child care. There is so much we could be spending this money on that would make a material difference in your actual life.

Show me your budget and I’ll show you your priorities. I know exactly what this administration’s priorities are. Putting money in Donald Trump’s pocket. Giving Elon Musk and every other tech billionaire — excuse me, trillionaire — whatever they ask for. Launching illegal wars so Trump’s kids can cash in on Pentagon contracts. It does not care about you. It does not care about me. And it sure as hell doesn’t care about a generation of workers who are terrified they won’t be able to take care of their families.

And what’s happening on this end is that a handful of the wealthiest, most powerful people in human history are about to take that wealth and that power and multiply it. We are barreling toward a concentration of money and control at a scale the world may have never seen. I don’t believe that’s going to be good for the average person. I don’t think there’s a single moment in history that suggests it will be.

And I’ll admit I was rattled, like a lot of people, by the Anthropic researcher who put a ten percent chance on AI killing all of us within the decade.

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Maybe we don’t end up in the sci-fi version where Skynet decides we’re surplus. I think that’s a real possibility and I think we need to be serious about it. But the likelier future might be the “boring” apocalypse. No robot uprising. No dramatic ending at all. Obscene concentration of wealth and power, tens of millions — maybe hundreds of millions — of people out of work, and a caste system in America with a handful of haves and an ocean of have-nots.

This isn’t a forecast. Just look at the unemployment rate for young men right now. It’s atrocious. I don’t think a society does well with a large population of young, disaffected men with nothing to do and nowhere to go. That should scare the hell out of all of us.

Now stack that on top of a country with no meaningful data privacy protections. Flock cameras on every corner. Phones listening. Smart TVs listening. No meaningful regulation of social media. Little to no real regulation of basically anything built in the last thirty years. I’ve seen what Mark Zuckerberg does with less. I’ve seen what Elon Musk does with less. I’ve seen what Peter Thiel does with less. I don’t trust those guys. I don’t think you should either, and I don’t think our government should — even if they’re the ones cutting the checks that pay for the campaigns.

It’s why JD Vance scares the shit out of me. He’s a puppet for Peter Thiel. That’s Thiel’s boy.

So yes, I want AI regulated. I want us to not build killer robots.

I would like to live. I would like my son to live. I would like my son to be gainfully employed and safe in the society he grows up in. I want that for your family too. That is not an unreasonable ask.

If we had real leaders in Washington, if we had an actual president of the United States who knew what the fuck he was doing, we’d be at the table with the Chinese government and every other government on earth trying to negotiate some kind of pact about how AI and robotics get developed. That’s what leadership looks like.

I don’t have the full framework yet. Neither does anybody else. That’s the problem. I’m going to get a lot more specific about what I expect. I’m also going to start bringing people into this conversation who can help figure out what a real framework looks like, because we need them and nobody in Washington is writing it.

This is going to be the biggest issue of the 2028 presidential election. There is no chance a Republican Congress deals with it. There is no chance Donald Trump deals with it — he’s in Big Tech’s back pocket and he’s not getting out. The Republican Party is never going to stand up to these people, which means the president who does this has to be a Democrat.

I have no idea which of the ten thousand candidates I’m voting for in 2028. They’re going to have to earn it. I’ve always looked for candidates who understand how power actually works in America and are willing to use it to save our democracy, our economy, and the middle class. I’m adding AI to that list.

What I’m not going to do is take the China bait. You could smell the desperation on Cruz this week. Nobody cares what’s happening in China if they’re worried their job is disappearing. If they can’t find work. If they can’t cover their bills.

It’s bad politics. It’s bad messaging. And it’s not going to work anymore.

That fear is a luxury good, and Americans can’t afford it right now.

Here’s the thing I keep coming back to. Nobody is un-inventing this. I said that at the beginning of this rant and I meant it. But the technology being inevitable and the terms being inevitable are two completely different claims, and the whole game right now is getting you to confuse them.

Who owns this. Who it works for. What it’s allowed to do to a town, to a workforce, to a kid. What happens to the people it puts out of work. None of that is settled. All of it is being decided right now, quietly, by a small number of people who would very much prefer you stay focused on Beijing.

So don’t. Ask every candidate who wants your vote what their framework is — not whether they’re worried, worried is free, but what they will actually do. Show up when they want to put a data center in your county and make them tell you what it takes and what it gives back. And when somebody tells you the real threat is China, you’ll know exactly what you’re being sold.

I don’t know how this ends. But it isn’t written yet, and the people telling you it is are the ones holding the pen.

With urgency,

—Mike