Prologue — The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Every election year, people claim they are living through a “historic” election, “the most important election in history”, “the most important election in our lifetimes”, or some other grand superlative claim. People said so in 1976,1 1980,2 1984,3 1988,4 1992,5 1996,6 2000,7 2004,8 2008,9 2012,10 2016,11 and 2020.12 Surely, not all of those elections could have been “the most important election of our lifetime”, but it doesn’t stop politicians and political pundits from repeating the claim anyway. Each party in an election is incentivized to make it seem like the Biggest Deal of All Time™, since scared and/or hopeful voters are more likely to turn out to the polls than apathetic voters. It’s almost unimaginable that a presidential candidate would say, “You know, this is a pretty run-of-the-mill election, and nothing that terrible will happen if the wrong person wins. So, y’know, it doesn’t really matter that much if you vote or not.” As a result, hyperbole is the norm in American elections.
And sure enough, the same thing is happening this year as well. Whether you’re right wing, left wing, a lawyer, a woman, a Christian, or Donald Trump himself, it seems the only thing we can all agree on this year is that this is the most important election ever. I can forgive you if the claim makes you skeptical — if, after so many false cries of “most important election”, you are inclined to dismiss the claim and view this year as just another round of Democrat-Republican bickering, no different than any previous round.
However, just like the boy who cried wolf eventually did see a real wolf, the America that cries “most important election” might actually witness a most important election. The title of this post is not mere clickbait; I sincerely believe that the 2024 United States election is the single most important election not just in our nation’s history, but in the entire history of humanity. The reason, as you might expect, is because of AI.
The Stakes
Artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing every single day. Just last month, OpenAI achieved AI that can perform PhD-level reasoning across multiple scientific domains, and just this week, Anthropic released the first usable AI agent. It has gotten to the point that even career AI researchers have trouble keeping up, and the progress shows no signs of slowing.
Artificial general intelligence, previously the talk of far-out science fiction, is now a reachable goal that most leading AI researchers expect to be achieved with just a few years. Per The Atlantic:
Top executives and respected researchers at the world’s biggest tech companies, including a recent Nobel laureate, are all at once insisting that superintelligent software is just around the corner, going so far as to provide timelines: They will build it within six years, or four years, or maybe just two.
Although AI executives commonly speak of the coming AGI revolution—referring to artificial “general” intelligence that rivals or exceeds human capability—they notably have all at this moment coalesced around real, albeit loose, deadlines. […] First, Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, repeated in August his suggestion from earlier this year that AGI could arrive by 2030, adding that “we could cure most diseases within the next decade or two.” A month later, even Meta’s more typically grounded chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, said he expected powerful and all-knowing AI assistants within years, or perhaps a decade. Then the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, wrote a blog post stating that “it is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days,” which would in turn make such dreams as “fixing the climate” and “establishing a space colony” reality. Not to be outdone, Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the rival AI start-up Anthropic, wrote in a sprawling self-published essay last week that such ultra-powerful AI “could come as early as 2026.”
Elon Musk, who runs his own AI lab, predicts that we may achieve AGI by the end of 2025. Leopold Aschenbrenner, the researcher who I align with the most, predicts AGI by 2027.
Once machines become better than humans at every cognitive task, society will be radically upended — for better or for worse. If the AI revolution goes well, it will usher in an age of unprecedented prosperity for humanity, where diseases are cured, ignorance is banished, and poverty and deprivation become things of the past. If the AI revolution goes poorly, it could lead to fates as bad as human extinction.
The stakes, quite literally, are existential. We are faced with a choice between an intergalactic civilization, and the end of civilization.
What will the next four years look like?
It is nearly impossible to predict the future with any degree of certainty, but a few things are evident even now.
First, the period from 2025-2029 will be extremely chaotic, no matter who is in charge. This will be a time of faster-than-ever technological advancement, even faster than what we are seeing at the moment. If you think that AI advancements since 2022 have been disorienting, just wait until you see what comes next. Wide swaths of the economy will likely become automated, as AI takes on new capabilities that previously only humans had. This will produce, at least temporarily, a severe unemployment crisis that will rattle local and global economies. At the same time, new attack vectors will emerge that let criminals and malicious agents cause damage in ways previously unimaginable (the rise of realistic deepfakes being just one example).
Internationally, tensions are higher than ever, and may continue to rise. The United States and Russia are locked in a proxy war in Ukraine that shows no signs of imminently stopping; the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and its enemies rages on; U.S. leaders are worried about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by 2027; and new theaters of war may arise at any moment. A conventional or nuclear war with either Russia, Iran, or China would be disastrous, especially given the fact that new autonomous weapons systems are being built which can cause more destruction than any previous type of weapon ever devised. The specter of a US-China war, in particular, would have severe implications given that most of the world’s advanced semiconductors are produced in Taiwan. Might China, scared of the US achieving global supremacy through AI, strike out by disrupting that microchip supply chain? It’s not an implausible scenario.
Any day during these years, AGI could be achieved (at least if any of the predictions above are to be trusted), thereby upending the entire world in an instant.
I would compare this period to the WWII era (1939-1945), given how many rapid, global, seismic changes we are likely to see in just a couple of years. But in truth, I expect that the era of world history we are about to enter will be even more chaotic and more impactful than WWII.
2024 is the AI Election
The choice of who to elect president this November is the choice of who you want to lead the most powerful country in history, at the most crucial time in history. Who do you expect to responsibly handle a meteoric rise in AI — perhaps including the advent of AGI — during a period of higher-than-ever domestic and international turmoil? It is the most important vote you will ever cast, and it may be the last vote you will ever cast.
I have tried to do my part to help this election go well. Most notably, I have launched a website — Politicians on AI Safety — to help voters understand what the candidates are saying and doing about AI. I highly recommend that if you are eligible to vote, that you look at the website and compare the candidates. It is imperative that we have a president who understands the potential benefits and risks of AI, and has a responsible policy in place to address those impacts.
And beyond the AI-specific questions, you should also consider: Which candidate can be trusted to make the right decisions in times of crisis? Which candidate can be trusted to put the common good over their personal or partisan interests? Which candidate will surround themself with wise and trustworthy advisors? Which candidate will uphold the institutions that keep America strong, even when those institutions are under threat?
If we as a country and as a species are to survive the rough waters ahead, then we must have a steady captain at the helm. So please, do your research, and vote! You will never get another chance like this.
The New York Times, 1976: "I think this election is one of the most vital in the history of America."
President Carter: the 1980 election is "the most important of this century."
President Reagan, 1984: "This is the most important election in this nation in 50 years."
Senator Robert Byrd, 1988: "It may be the most important election of this century."
Bill Clinton, 1992: “[T]his is the most important election in a generation.”
"This is the most critical election in the long history of the American labor movement."
John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president, The Washington Post, March 3
"It's the most important election of our lifetime."
Ralph Reed, Christian Coalition director, The Tulsa World, April 14
"Talk about a bummer! Can you imagine how the Republicans must feel at this, the beginning of the most important election year in decades? Pass the Prozac, please."
Robert Beckel, Democratic political analyst; commentary in The Denver Post, Jan. 31
Congressman Zach Wamp: "2000 historically is the most important national election in my lifetime."
"We share a belief that this is the most important election of our lifetime."
Statement on Bruce Springsteen's Web site on the Vote for Change tour.
"My fellow Americans, this is the most important election of our lifetime."
Senator John Kerry Democratic National Convention, July 29.
"For that reason, ladies and gentlemen, the election of 2004 is one of the most important, not just in our lives, but in our history."
Vice President Dick Cheney Republican National Convention on Wednesday.
Larry King: "Is this the most important election ever?"
President Bush: "For me it is."
The Guardian: 2008 is “the most important election of our lifetime”.
Donald Trump, 2016: “This is by far the most important vote you’ve ever cast for anyone at any time.”
Bernie Sanders, 2020: “This is the most important election, not only in our lifetime but in the modern history of our country.”
I could probably find way more examples if I went looking for them, but hopefully you get the point.