When Bernie Sanders and I agree on AI, America had better pay attention

Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned recently in the London Guardian that artificial intelligence “is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media, and within the general population” despite the speed at which it is developing. “That has got to change.”

To my surprise, as a conservative advocate of limited government and free markets, I agree completely.

AI is neither a left nor a right issue. It is a human issue that will decide who holds power in the decades ahead and whether individuals retain sovereignty.

As I read Sanders’ piece, I kept thinking, “This sounds like something I could have written!” That alone should tell us something. If two people who disagree on almost everything else see the same dangers emerging from artificial intelligence, then maybe we can set aside the usual partisan divides and confront a problem that will touch every American.

Different policies, same fears

I’ve worked in the policy world for more than a decade, and it’s fair to say Bernie Sanders and I have opposed each other in nearly every major fight. I’ve pushed back against his single-payer health care plans. I’ve worked to stop his Green New Deal agenda. On economic policy, Sanders has long stood for the exact opposite of the free-market principles I believe make prosperity possible.

That’s why reading his AI op-ed felt almost jarring. Time after time, his concerns mirrored my own.

Sanders warned about the unprecedented power Silicon Valley elites now wield over this transformational technology. As someone who spent years battling Big Tech censorship, I share his alarm over unaccountable tech oligarchs shaping information, culture, and political discourse.

He points to forecasts showing AI-driven automation could displace nearly 100 million American jobs in the coming decade. I helped Glenn Beck write “Dark Future: Uncovering the Great Reset’s Terrifying Next Phase” in 2023, where we raised the exact same red flag, that rapid automation could destabilize the workforce faster than society can adapt.

Sanders highlights how AI threatens privacy, civil liberties, and personal autonomy. These are concerns I write and speak about constantly. Sanders notes that AI isn’t just changing industry; it’s reshaping the human condition, foreign policy, and even the structure of democratic life. On all of this, he is correct.

When a Democratic Socialist and a free-market conservative diagnose the same disease, it usually means the symptoms are too obvious to ignore.

Where we might differ

While Sanders and I share almost identical fears about AI, I suspect we would quickly diverge on the solutions. In his op-ed, he offers no real policy prescriptions at all. Instead, he simply says, “Congress must act now.” Act how? Sanders never says. And to be fair, that ambiguity is a dilemma I recognize.

As someone who argues consistently for limited government, I’m reluctant to call for new regulations. History shows that sweeping, top-down interventions usually create more problems than they solve. Yet AI poses a challenge unlike anything we’ve seen before — one that neither the market nor Congress can responsibly ignore.

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Photo by Cesc Maymo/Getty Images

When Sanders says, “Congress must act,” does he want sweeping, heavy-handed regulations that freeze innovation? Does he envision embedding ESG-style subjective metrics into AI systems, politicizing them further? Does he want to codify conformity to European Union AI regulations?

We cannot allow a handful of corporations or governments to embed their subjective values into systems that increasingly manipulate our decisions, influence our communications, and deter our autonomy.

The nonnegotiables

Instead of vague calls for Congress to “do something,” we need a clear framework rooted in enduring American principles.

AI systems (especially those deployed across major sectors) must be built with hard, nonnegotiable safeguards that protect the individual from both corporate and governmental overreach.

This means embedding constitutional values into AI design, enshrining guarantees for free speech, due process, privacy, and equal treatment. It means ensuring transparency around how these systems operate and what data they collect.

This also means preventing ideological influence, whether from Beijing, Silicon Valley, or Washington, D.C., by insisting on objectivity, neutrality, and accountability.

These principles should not be considered partisan. They are the guardrails, rooted in the Constitution, which protect us from any institution, public or private, that seeks too much power.

And that is why the overlap between Sanders’ concerns and mine matters so much. AI is neither a left nor a right issue. It is a human issue that will decide who holds power in the decades ahead and whether individuals retain sovereignty.

If Bernie Sanders and I both see the same storm gathering on the horizon, perhaps it’s time the rest of the country looks up and recognizes the clouds for what they are.

Now is the moment for Americans, across parties and philosophies, to insist that AI strengthen liberty rather than erode it. If we fail to set those boundaries today, we may soon find that the most important choices about our future are no longer made by people at all.