Obama tells Democrats to have a 'clear plan' on AI

Former President Barack Obama recently said Democrats need to make artificial intelligence one of their “central agendas” and “have a very clear plan” to address concerns around the technology’s economic impact and safety, according to The New York Times. Obama made the comments at a Democratic fundraising event Thursday, where House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries interviewed him; the NYT reported that Obama’s office provided a partial transcript of the event, at which Jeffries asked Obama how congressional Democrats should approach AI.

Obama said that once Democrats regain the House majority, they need to “put together a framework for a very public conversation.” “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, adding, “If we do get on top of it, I do think it’s beneficial. I genuinely think it’s going to accelerate, for example, drug development in ways that can help us cure diseases.”

In a statement, Jeffries said the former president “is correct that decisive action must be taken on artificial intelligence,” and that “Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to govern on behalf of the American people.”

The NYT also reported that Obama has offered himself as a “sounding board” to AI executives and has spoken with both Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. His comments come amid growing concern about AI safety, after an AI researcher resigned from Anthropic and claimed leading AI companies are “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.” On Saturday, Amodei outlined a broad approach to “pacing the frontier,” including giving independent safety evaluators access to leading AI companies and models and developing “common safety standards” between companies; Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded positively on social media, with Altman saying OpenAI would commit to “having independent evaluators with employee-like access.” President Donald Trump, meanwhile, discussed AI safety concerns with reporters at an Irish golf event Sunday, boasting that the United States is “the most sophisticated country in the world” and that “we can put guardrails,” while adding that “you have a lot of negative forces” pushing the issue.

Why it matters

Obama’s comments add a prominent Democratic voice to a widening debate over how aggressively to regulate AI, at a moment when the party lacks a unified legislative position while the Trump administration has pursued a framework preempting state AI laws.