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On September 10,<\/span> two days after researcher Jacob Coxon<\/a>, who had recently quit his job at Anthropic, sounded the alarm about the industry<\/a> potentially bringing about the end of humanity<\/a>, the New York City Democratic Socialists of America posted a carousel of images<\/a> on Instagram. The first slide was a drawing of an ouroboros\u2014a dragon eating its own tail\u2014set against a hot pink background. \u201cAI alarmism and AI hype are the same story: both keep your attention on a science-fiction future to distract you from the real harms experienced in the present,\u201d the image reads.<\/p>\n The post was authored by the NYC DSA\u2019s Tech Action Working Group, which focuses on tech regulation issues for the chapter, the largest in the country. It garnered more than 25,000 likes on Instagram. But not everyone agreed with the post: \u201cHorrible and dangerous take,\u201d one comment reads. \u201cSometimes sounding the alarm is justified.\u201d<\/p>\n As politicians scramble to understand AI safety, an ideological split is opening on the American left. Among the questions it\u2019s centered on is whether to believe tech companies\u2019 claims that their products are so powerful that they could end the world.<\/p>\n Some on the left question the value in elevating theoretical concerns about AI over actual harms. They believe repeating claims promoted by the frontier labs about the dangers of AI empowers the AI companies, turning attention away from regulating the current harms of the technology and toward an impossible future.<\/p>\n \u201cAI has become the latest tool of capitalist exploitation. The damage that unregulated and misused AI is already causing is clear across the country,\u201d Alan Dang, a member of Tech Action, tells WIRED. \u201cAs socialists, we don\u2019t trust these corporations to craft their own regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n But others are following the direction of Senator Bernie Sanders, the unofficial leader of the American left, who has enthusiastically taken up the AI safety issue, asserting that AI has the potential to eliminate humanity. They say that it\u2019s possible to address all harms from AI\u2014both those happening now and those that could happen in the future\u2014at once.<\/p>\n \u201cThe same people concerned about frontier governance and the development of superintelligence are also addressing those current harms,\u201d says Alexander McCoy, a Democratic strategist working on AI issues. \u201cWe should address all these other important factors. Those frontier AI abilities are true and increasing in power. They are not fake or hype.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past year, Sanders dove head-first into the world of AI safety, bringing conversations that were previously happening in Bay Area circles to Washington and his large populist base. The 85-year-old was early to both opposing data centers\u2014a massive organizing pole for the left this year\u2014and speaking out about AI\u2019s potential harms, from job loss to existential dangers. His data center moratorium bill, released in March, explicitly linked<\/a> pausing construction with the need to pass federal regulation to protect \u201cthe future of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n Sanders\u2019s positioning on this issue has put him in some unusual alliances<\/a>, most notably with Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump\u2019s former adviser and a right-wing populist podcast host. It has also seemingly inspired a raft of messaging from left-wing candidates running for office across the country, many of whom have been tying broader concerns around AI to the furor over data centers. On September 9, a day before the New York DSA post, six candidates affiliated with the Working Families Party, including four backed by Sanders, released<\/a> statements<\/a> on<\/a> the<\/a> need<\/a> for<\/a> Washington to regulate AI to prevent existential threats to humanity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n