The AI Awakening: Why America Needs a Real Plan Before It’s Too Late

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed deep-seated flaws in the US economic system and revealed policymakers’ inadequacy. As advanced artificial intelligence technologies rapidly accelerate, the country is at risk of repeating the mistakes that led to the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic.

The speed with which policymakers adapted to the COVID-19 reality was striking. The CARES Act, passed in March 2020, included unprecedented government intervention through cash payments, unemployment insurance, and business bailouts. This level of intervention was made possible by a sudden shift in public opinion and the Overton Window – the range of acceptable policy ideas.

The AI boom is unfolding even faster than the pandemic. Anthropic’s revenue growth has already surpassed $47 billion, exceeding that of Coca-Cola and Netflix. If this trend continues, it will outpace Amazon’s current revenue by late November or early December. The debate over AI’s value is largely over; now, we’re concerned about its effects on our lives.

We face a brief window of policy freedom and flexibility, similar to March 2020. This moment could enable large changes for the better, but the US needs to prepare quickly. The Center for Shared AI Prosperity, a new research group in DC, is collecting detailed policy ideas that can meet this challenge.

The assumption that AI will permanently shift our politics and make policies like guaranteed income or sovereign wealth funds inevitable is overly optimistic. Congress is notoriously resistant to change, and policymakers tend to revert to their default positions once the crisis passes. We saw this with COVID-19: within a few months, Republicans had pivoted from supporting safety net expansion to resisting it.

As we navigate the AI-driven economy, we must be cautious not to repeat past mistakes. Current proposals for addressing AI’s challenges are woefully inadequate – sweeping ideas without legislative detail or undersized fixes that won’t suffice for the scale of change we’re facing. Whoever has a detailed plan ready to pass when the moment hits will shape policy.

The turning point came in March 2020, when Republican Sen. Tom Cotton proposed sending every American checks from the government. This was an early indication of the actual policy the US would pursue – near-universal cash payments and massive business bailouts. We need to get ahead of this crisis, not just respond to it.

Now is the time to act. The Center for Shared AI Prosperity has an open Request for Ideas with funding available for proposals that can set up the tax code and safety net in a way fit for the AI era. It’s our responsibility as citizens and policymakers to get ready for this moment of policy freedom and flexibility before it’s too late.

The AI awakening is upon us, and we need to respond with a comprehensive plan that addresses the challenges and opportunities presented by these technologies. We cannot afford to repeat past mistakes or assume that the power of AI will magically shift our politics in a favorable direction. The country must act – before the crisis hits.