Exclusive / Conservative group issues warning on AI - Semafor

AI policy helped deliver Democratic majorities and Republicans need a major recalibration on the issue ahead of the next presidential election, a post-midterms memo from the conservative AI policy group Alliance for a Better Future argues. The group, helmed by former Virginia Republican official Janet Kelly, focuses on pro-family, pro-worker AI policy and has groups like the Heritage Foundation on its advisory council.

The memo, which was shared first with Semafor states that “it’s impossible to ignore the strong impact Super Intelligence policy had on this election and how connected it is to economic concerns in particular. … If Republicans recalibrate correctly, [AI] can be an asset in 2028 for both our country and our party.”

The memo describes liberal efforts to connect economic concerns to anti-elite populist sentiment related to AI as a “deadly one-two punch.” Those worries drove AI “up the issue grid” so rapidly it flew under the radar for Republicans, it continues, arguing that GOP candidates and their allies also failed to counter Democratic attacks that associated their candidates with a pro-AI and data center message.

A full-throated embrace of Trump’s light-touch AI regulatory agenda would be a mistake for future Republican candidates, according to the group, which is pushing for a greater level of AI guardrails than the administration. “It would be political malpractice for Republicans not to course correct their SI policy positions and risk permanently ceding this issue to Democrats,” the memo states.

The group recommends passing bills around chatbots and kids, codifying Trump’s voluntary AI accord into law, instituting economic policies that help workers, and pushing companies to focus more on uses like curing disease and less on “experiments that only benefit the developers themselves.”