The political economy of AI — things are getting weird, it seems. We have models on the loose, open weights being dropped from the heavenly temple, and data center protests fanning out across the land. There’s a lot of salience in a way that feels really different than it did even six months ago. To discuss, we have the wonderful Anton Leicht, a fellow at Carnegie and author of the excellent Substack Threading the Needle.
Our conversation covers:
Why even a small amount of AI-driven unemployment could upend national politics, especially if agents start replacing junior white-collar workers and breaking the career pipeline,
What policymakers can do to protect workers without calcifying the economy, how to collect better data on AI and labor, and whether to subsidize junior hiring,
The case for funding the AI transition with corporate income taxes instead of token taxes, and why offering the government AI equity or “golden shares” would backfire,
Data center backlash, strategies for winning hearts and minds, and options for friendshoring AI infrastructure,
The political economy of safety — why pausing AI development wouldn’t work, but a coordinated slowdown might,
The coming reckoning between open source and the national security state.
Plus, Kafka on bureaucracy and happenstance, how Anton’s years in esports shaped his career, and why new ideas seem to travel more easily through American policy discourse than European institutions.
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