Former Congressman and Pentagon official Brad Carson discusses his organization, Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI), which seeks to bridge the gap between immediate AI harms like and catastrophic safety risks, while bringing deep Capitol Hill expertise to the AI conversation . He argues that unlike previous innovations such as electricity or the automobile, AI has been deeply unpopular with the public from the start, creating a rare bipartisan alignment among those skeptical of its power and impacts. This creates openings for productive discussions about AI policy. Drawing on his military experience, Carson suggests that while AI will shorten the kill chain, it won't fundamentally change the human nature of warfare, and he warns against the US military's tendency to seek technical solutions to human problems . The conversation covers current policy debates, highlighting the necessity of regulating the design of models rather than just their deployment, and the importance of export controls to maintain the West's advantage in compute . Ultimately, Carson emphasizes that for AI to succeed politically, the "bounty" of this technology must be shared broadly to avoid tearing apart the social fabric

Brad Carson is the founder and president of Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI), an organization dedicated to lobbying for policy that ensures artificial intelligence benefits the public interest. A former Rhodes Scholar, Carson has had a diverse career in public service, having served as a U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma, the Undersecretary of the Army, and the acting Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness . He also served as a university president and deployed to Iraq in 2008 .

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