AEI senior fellow James Pethokoukis — author of the Faster, Please! newsletter — joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue that America’s AI anxiety is the predictable product of two decades of shocks landing on an economy that’s been weak by historical standards. His central political point cuts against his own side of the argument: telling voters their fear is irrational is the worst possible strategy, and Silicon Valley is terrible at communicating with the public. He’s no more comfortable with Trump’s self-regulation approach, noting Congress has failed to pass even a privacy bill of rights and won’t touch AI in the next two years. His cautionary tale is nuclear power, where public aversion cost the country clean energy at scale while far more people died from fossil fuel pollution — and his warning is that AI companies shouldn’t be treated as weapons against China.

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Timeline:

00:00 James Pethokoukis joins The Chuck ToddCast

02:00 Why an economic growth guy got interested in AI

05:00 Shock after shock, and whether the information diet amplifies despair

07:30 Why focusing only on AI’s downside is destructive

12:00 Self-regulation, congressional failure, and the next two years

19:00 What risk level should we demand from AI companies?

20:15 The nuclear power cautionary tale

25:15 Rapid adoption, delayed productivity, and absurd forecasts

32:00 Silicon Valley’s communication problem

36:30 Accountability, visibility, and young companies

44:00 Where does a free-market conservative go now?