Obama says Dems must put this issue at top of agenda: ‘Can be dangerous’

By Tom Wrobleski | wrobleski@siadvance.comFormer President Barack Obama is urging Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to put regulation of artificial intelligence at the top of the Democrats’ agenda if the party retakes the House in the midterm elections.The New York Times reported that Obama told Jeffries at a Thursday fundraiser that Dem lawmakers should develop a framework for a “public conversation” on the tech.Jeffries is in line to become Speaker if the Dems gain the House majority in November. “This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don’t get on top of it, I think can be dangerous,” Obama said. “If we do get on top of it, I do think it’s beneficial.”The former two-term Democratic president went on to say: “I genuinely think it’s going to accelerate, for example, drug development in ways that can help us cure diseases. I do think that this can help us figure out pathways for a clean energy future.”Obama’s comments come after Jacob Coxon, who resigned from AI giant Anthropic, said that those building AI models believe that the tech “could kill us all” in four years. “I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” Coxon wrote in a social media post. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Jeffries said he backs lawmakers “urgently” acting to regulate AI, per The Hill, which the New York Democrat said would “protect the health, the safety, the well-being of the American people.”A 1987 graduate of Fordham University's College at Lincoln Center, Tom began working at the Staten Island Advance in 1995. The native Staten Islander started his career at the Advance as a community board...