We need a better theory of polarization, because it's failing to predict the AI debate

The punchline first: the AI issue is really not playing out the way you would expect if you know about polarization.

• In public sentiment: data centers have been a very bipartisan issue for about a year (Gallup, in May: 75% opposed by D, 63% opposed by R). x-risk is thus far bipartisan. These are very salient issues, and salient issues are usually fast to polarize.
• Legislatively, both the both-party sponsored AI Kill Switch Act and Bernie Sanders' Stop Superintelligence Act give Trump enormous new powers. The latter act gives Trump a new cabinet post. This would be unheard of before this year and it's fully incompatible with the "Resistance Democrats" bloc's priorities.
• Flock camera backlash has also become bipartisan (politico, August), which also is surprising given prior knowledge of polarization. I bring this up, because to me, they "feel" related as new technology being imposed on people, and it suggests broader issues than just AI may be defying polarization.

And now I break down why this is a big deal.

Definitionally, polarization is subtyped as:

1. Affective polarization: the left and right generally, emotionally, dislike each other. Words like enmity, suspicion, contempt, immoral, or simply hate, are used.
2. Legislative gridlock: the parties turn into blocs that don't vote together to get anything done.
3. Issue polarization: when an issue doesn't represent an area of improvement along multiple concerns, but two camps who want to move the issue in one direction or its opposite. Given gridlock, the result is nothing gets done.

Combining those, polarization is a system that operates as a vicious cycle among the three subtypes. It seems to perpetuate, and no elites or grassroots movement in the United States has found an off-ramp in the last 20 years. The United States are definitely very polarized under any of these subtype definitions.

I switched to viewing polarization as a theory, in which the state of polarization is an observable fact, and the theory makes the falsifiable prediction that the state of polarization perpetuates:

1. Individuals will continue seeking ways to be on opposite sides and maintain mutual enmity.
2. Legislators will adhere to doing what their bases want, which is to gridlock.
3. All salient issues will polarize very quickly.

AI has violated these: individuals on left/right have not identified the issue with each other, some legislators have taken anti-polarized stances, and it's been very salient for a while without polarizing (datacenter opposition for about a year).

Something is broken about polarization theory as applied to AI, and that is of great interest to us.

The hypothesis AI just hasn't polarized yet is wrong and dangerous

Firstly, The observable facts of polarization are facts, and the predictions are falsifiable. We shouldn't talk about polarization as an ambient force or a regime, when the state and predictions are separable, and furthermore we see the predictions are failing.

Our prior for those predictions should not be that high. Politics is weird. 20 years of polarization is plenty enough for macro- "vibe shifts" to take place. People's identities are constantly in flux, tribes dissolve and reform, and in fact a substantial number of people have changed tribes over the past 10 years. AI is already a big shock to people's lives, small and big.

Certainly, predict an issue will polarize by default, but once the evidence is against that, take a hard look at polarization's predictive power, not just your measurement instruments.

Secondly, we really do have the evidence AI is not playing out that way. It's better to figure out why and leverage it. If AI isn't polarizing because reason X, we now have the strategy of working on public opinion without worrying about polarization, as long as we worry about preserving X.

Thirdly, mismodeling polarization on AI is dangerous. It's possible that X is something like, "the left is being really sincere and focused on the issue thereby breaking the cycle", and if we neglect the left and they change, we're back to polarizing. Worse, we might not even learn from this, just thinking polarization consumes everything, not that we squandered it.

Why AI is different

"Kitchen-table" issues that people agree on are polarized less, and Trump is incentivized to follow commonsense policy on kitchen-table issues.

That's really it. If it's surprising, I think it's because polarization gets the mechanic wrong for certain past issues.

Object-level convergence on AI fear, from all sides

I think this is the main thing: both the left and right have strong, object-level opinions toward addressing AI danger.

The climate change comparison shows where polarization theory was overconfident in the past. Yes, climate change is polarized, but which of these statements seems likelier?

1. Conservatives don't want climate action because the left does and they got increasingly tribal about it.
2. Conservatives don't like taxes or forced lifestyle changes.

The second statement is nearly the definition of conservatism so I think that is likelier. They simply never updated their stance over the entire debate. Yes, we factually polarized, but vicious cycle polarization was not the cause of conservatives' anti- climate action views. Maybe conservatives polarized on science, but they just stuck to their priors on climate action.

If Trump loses the middle, a lot of fundamental assumptions about Trump-era politics change

Polarization predicts Congressional Republicans won't break with Trump, but betting markets see that possibility:

• The Kalshi odds today of Trump being impeached and removed from office are 18%.
• The odds of a veto-proof override are 10% before 2027 and 35% before 2029. Note Trump has an escape hatch on this in that he can simply sign anything that looks veto-proof.

My dead-simple theory for this is that Trump is losing the middle, and the the middle matters more for what Trump and Republicans do than the base. If this is unintuitive, you may be underestimating Trump's usual appeal to the middle, basically because the left has out-ridiculous-ed Trump on culture war issues.

If Trump loses the middle, things can change really fast.

1. He materially pivots on the relevant issue. For example, in the January 2026 ICE protests, the left was ultra-partisan, pushing away the right but winning over the middle. Trump ended Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis in February.
2. Republicans will break from him more.
3. Congress will start pushing him around on policy, and he'll have to decide how to respond. Impeachment and removal are conceivable if this goes too far sideways.

Plus, the left is giving Trump a fight now. "Affordability" won the frame for 2026, and I'm not sure I remember the last time the right talked like they are playing catchup. If the left keep doing politics like this, they can be really influential on the middle.

Either the left or right can try reaching the the middle on AI. The main thing is that someone does, and left/right enmity does not matter so much.

Bonus: Angry Birds Congress

This lame duck Congress could be really weird! A bunch of Republicans might get voted out, and just start voting on whatever without much concern for Trump loyalty.

(The name "Angry Birds" was used in 2010, referring to the phone game and also to the furious activity of the lame duck Congress, as a bunch of moderate Republicans wanted to rush in their wins before gridlock set in... due to their own party's victory).

Aside on efficacy of ultra-partisan tactics

In fact, the ICE protests success even shows the strong and counterintuitive result that ultra-partisan tactics can work, even when instigated by the left, with Trump in office, and under polarized politics. I don't really have an idea here to develop, so I don't endorse this for now, but if you are excluding this search space because polarization is bad, you should update on polarization and then see how you feel.

Left leaders on the left's successful efforts include local immigration protest leaders in Minneapolis, Chicago and other places, and organizers of the No Kings rallies. We can just ask, if we want.

Conversely, culture warring over AI (e.g. racism regulation) would be bad right now.

Elites are anti-polarizing

I noted this above with Bernie's bill giving Trump a new cabinet position.

The point here is that is a rather strong effect. Polarization predicts that a total vicious cycle causes polarization, it doesn't predict that it tolerates the removal of one piece. A lot of the polarization engine might unravel fast, as soon as any part of it frays.

Polarization might start with cross-partisan industry skepticism

There's a leftist faction that still suspects this whole thing is a hoax. They see "hype/marketing" argument very clearly, the "doom" argument seems shaky, and the labs movements and regulation push confirms the hype/marketing frame not the doom frame.

The weird thing is that, for the moment, that aligns them closer to Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) than Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). All senators said to not do the labs' preferred regulation framework but only Warren said we should follow with good regulation.

The precedent that worries me is anti-vax. They were cross-partisan in 2010s then rightist after covid, but still, about 1 in 5 Democrats were covid vaccine holdouts through 2021. They were more of a bottom-up than top-down. Recall President Trump launched Operation Warp Speed to rush covid vaccine development, then found it awkward whether to take credit given his base soured on vaccines so much. I surmise they recruited some Republicans from Democrats, as Democrats were experimenting with policies like banning the un-vaxxed from entering businesses.

Arguments I've seen are:

1. The labs are scheming power-grabbers and regulation seems to help them.
2. We have enough regulation anyway, or, local/state regulation will do e.g. on datacenters. This is bipartisan.
3. Ad-hominem attacks against rationalists, EA, other figures, coming from both Trump and the left.

I recommend sincerely engaging with... the first two. The first doesn't always crux on doom so we ought to learn from them where they're right, make concessions as they arise, and build credibility that the pro-regulation people aren't just ignoring lab power. As for the second, it seems likely enough there's useful existing regulation, and we can't afford the perception this is just about pursuing new regulation instead of finding a solution somewhere.

Probably, the frame we want to achieve is: AI is making your life suck, not AI regulation.

Honorable mention: "What about China?"

The argument still kinda works. That seems bad.

China, despite being a real country in the world, is a nebulous concept that is cited for arbitrary conclusions with no real theory. Consider taking up the thinkpiece to change that.

1. The first two from Wikipedia, but I used "gridlock" instead of "elite polarization" which seems overloaded with other meanings of elite. The third I added to round out this discussion.
2. I'm taking the polarization era to start with Obama 2008. If you know a lot about polarization before then, you might know precedents for AI that I don't.
3. "Mr. President, your immigration policies have gone too far" in a Republican campaign ad.
4. I forget: unvaxxed, anti-vax, vax-hesitant, and I forget when in 2021 or 2022. I do know it fit some family of mine, forcing me to remember this wasn't a fully polarized issue.