I will resolve this based on some combination of how much it gets talked about in elections, how much money goes to interest groups on both topics, and how much of the "political conversation" seems to be about either.
1,000People are also trading
@Vergissfunktor I would be ~a single issue voter on AI if there was a solid US presidential candidate in 2028.
@DavidHiggs I think they implicitly meant "a nontrivial number of single issue voters". Of course there is at least one single issue voter for pretty much any issue, cf lizardman constant
@bens I think we are definitely talking about AI more (even in the primary discourse now), I'd bet there's more money going to interest groups on AI by this point (although I'd love for someoe to run the numbers), and as for the "political conversation" by vibes? lol of course
@bens I mean just look at the feeds of any normie/right wing/left wing politico on twitter / bluesky / facebook. It's all AI.
@bens okay so my best guess on political spending on abortion across all elections in 2024, including the federal elections, is somewhere between $250 and $500 million.
Just in 2025 alone, which is not even a midterms year, this NYT piece says pro-AI groups spent about $80 million. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/us/politics/ai-money-midterms-openai-anthropic.html
I'd guess that in 2026, a midterms year, we'll probably expect to see something on the order of $200 million in spending by pro- and anti- AI groups (almost entirely pro- lol) and something quite comparable in abortion spending. I'd probably give 60/40 odds to AI being higher in spending, but hard to say. In 2028... on the other hand, I expect AI to very likely eclipse abortion spending.
@bens assuming it is bigger by the midterms (not convinced but assume), will it still be in 2028, when resolution should be assessed?
@MachiNi if we’re not in an AI bubble/ it doesn’t burst, very likely the answer will be yes and by a larger margin than midterms
@DavidHiggs could be. Or it bursts before the election and the fact that it did is a topic or it bursts tomorrow and it wears off or it keeps growing steadily and recedes in the background because it’s no longer top of mind for voters but, say, abortion bans have become more salient again, or… or. My point is that whatever ‘bigness’ we attribute to AI now is at best weak evidence of what it’ll be like in 2028.
@MachiNi well sure, theoretically anything could happen, but AI in 2 years if there isn’t a bubble burst, is AI with 2 more years of rapid capability progress: increasingly large market impacts, revenue shares and capex spends, probably starting to hit real job displacements finally, etc., which means increasing incentive to spend money influencing things.
Plus, dems will almost certainly swing at least the house, meaning AI companies escaping meaningful regulation might not be so free and easy —> more spending.
Aside from generic fog of war and the possibility of a bubble bursting, everything we know points to AI becoming more spent on and salient in 2 years, not less.
@MachiNi if there is an AI bubble, then it will DEFINITELY be a bigger topic than abortion in 2028. It would cause a financial crisis as big or bigger than 2008!
@bens hmm, you’re right that it could be bigger than abortion because the crash is so big, but I don’t expect a bubble popping to cause 2008 levels of recession. The tech’s real and useful, kinda like the internet, so a bubble would just be too much enthusiasm too quickly, and thus a more moderate recession like the dotcom crash.
Probably. There are disanalogies.
@GP it’s from an ACX prediction where Scott Alexander was specifically talking about US politics, but also the market is tagged with US politics
Surprised this is trading so high. Abortion is a topic where society is divided for and against, where politicians and parties need to voice an official position, where religions have stances based on scripture, and which has been through the Supreme Court at various times. Abortion is a matter of life and death that fundamentally affects the course of people’s lives. AI is a live issue and a huge one but it still none of those things.
@jrmygrdn Although this is true the implications of its wide spread adoption with limited regulation are massive. For one if the generative ai continues to improve it will become very difficult to continue to easily identify real unadulterated media from generated media without the aid of tools to identify the AI generation. But beyond on this without safeguards in place or secondary failsafe laws, you risk a reality where a bottle neck occurs within the private sector of jobs that are actually able to be automated ( not the le epic take of AI will take all jobs ) thus causing job loss, and then no way to actually stop the ramifications of said job loss. Now that could be amended via legislation on a state level in which states dictate a percentage of human workforce per organization but the idea that the regulation would be sweeping within every state with the current admin is a bit rich. It will also effect the ability to be economically mobile at least in the states, No job for unskilled workers = no money for them, no money = no food = well you get the rest. It wouldn't be every person or even a majority of people but left unchecked could be devastating. Additionally, this doesn't even get into the considerations of the cybersecurity angle and the potential implications for things like our power grids, water supply, internet and private information.
Abortion is just overly politicized thus talked about more, and in reality has much narrower implications for the everyday person. Especially with the increase in people not having kids in general. If abortion is made legal then that status quo returns, if its made illegal then there will be outrage and people will die, but people will still be able to eat, and provide for their famililes. If AI is allowed to encrouch unrestricted then it could effect the ability to generate income for unskilled and some skilled workers.
@goober That’s all true but we still don’t see pro-AI or anti-AI politicians and not even any regulation being proposed or debated. Even when AI companies do blatantly illegal stuff (copyright theft, making child porn) nothing at all seems to happen. Given all that I don’t expect much pro-AI or anti-AI lobbying money being spent, whereas abortion has a constant baseline of that, albeit reduced a lot by reversion to the states.
@jrmygrdn It depends on your state, there is actually politcians who are talking about it in fact thats why trump explicitly said that state regulations will be ignored in order to advanced Ai. Additionally there is already legislation on Ai such as in the case of deepfake porn, weather its as enforced as it should be is a different question, but it is being ruled on. Additionally there is lobbying on it as of november Politico reported a $150 million lobbying fued over Ai. As of the start of 2023 over 323 lobbyists were hired directly for lobbying Ai related issues. This number jumped by over 188% reaching 931 lobbyists by the end of 2023. This was now, 3 years ago, i'm sure the number of Ai lobbyists is in the thousands now. Additionally, there are anti Ai groups like PauseAi or Transparency Coalition.
The perception that this isn't being covered is because of few things. One, is its a brand new issue, and the idea that its even in conversation between us here within the same conversation as abortion which has been a 50-60 year polticized issue kind of shows that this issue is gaining steam. The young age of the issue is also why lobbying is just starting. In reality, for how long generative and conversational Ai has been relevant, which in its current capacity is about 5 years, its pretty obvious this will probably be as much of an issue if not more.