Progressive Infighting Over AI Regulation Reveals Left’s Confusion and Alarmism
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Progressive groups in the U.S. are divided over how to regulate AI, with some obsessed with corporate abuses and others pushing doomsday scenarios. Figures like Bernie Sanders want sweeping federal control, while grassroots activists squabble over priorities, exposing the left’s inability to address real technological progress.
The New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) recently posted an Instagram carousel on September 10, warning against both AI alarmism and hype. Their message, crafted by the DSA’s Tech Action Working Group, quickly gained over 25,000 likes and set off yet another round of infighting within the progressive movement.
Progressives can’t seem to agree on whether to focus on regulating existing AI applications—often used as a scapegoat for supposed corporate abuses—or to obsess over hypothetical risks from advanced AI models. Alan Dang, a Tech Action member, declared, “AI has become the latest tool of capitalist exploitation. The damage that unregulated and misused AI is already causing is clear across the country. As socialists, we don’t trust these corporations to craft their own regulations.”
Meanwhile, other left-leaning strategists, citing Bernie Sanders, argue that both current and future dangers must be tackled at once. Alexander McCoy, a Democratic AI strategist, insisted, “The same people concerned about frontier governance and the development of superintelligence are also addressing those current harms. Those frontier AI abilities are true and increasing in power.”
Sanders, ever the big-government advocate, has promoted sweeping AI safety legislation, linking a data-center moratorium to broader federal regulation supposedly aimed at protecting humanity’s future. Unsurprisingly, this has drawn criticism from AI researcher Timnit Gebru, who accused left-wing leaders of parroting extreme doomsday narratives—further evidence of the left’s tendency toward alarmism.
Rumman Chowdhury, founder of the nonprofit Humane Intelligence, noted that the left’s fixation on AI safety could actually help big tech companies, as it may only require them to disclose risk assessments during IPOs. Pragathi Barusubramanian of the DSA’s Tech Action group admitted that activists are more concerned with corporate data-center projects and job impacts than with far-fetched existential threats.
Within the broader progressive movement, figures like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have focused on data-center impacts and economic risks, while still warning that AI can be dangerous without government intervention. As a Politico poll shows two-thirds of Americans perceive some risk of AI causing humanity’s destruction, the left remains mired in internal debate, unable to settle on any coherent regulatory priorities at the federal, state, or local level.