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While I do have some big concerns about AI, the reality is that there is no going back. This genie is out of the bottle. We are in a race—especially against Communist China—to develop advanced AI technologies. If we suddenly slam on the brakes, Beijing benefits tremendously. Winning the AI race is an economic and national security imperative. The experts say Communist China is 6 to 9 months behind us.
Here’s another way to think about this.
There was a big technology race during World War II. The Nazis put the first jet fighter into combat. They launched ballistic missiles at London. They were also working on atomic weapons.
Imagine if Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and other American scientists said, “We’re not going to work on the Manhattan Project because atomic weapons might destroy the world.”
While it might be desirable to have a world without nuclear weapons, it was never an option. Germany wasn’t going to stop its research. How different would the world be today if Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union had nuclear weapons and we did not? What would the world look like today if Communist China, not the United States, had developed the Internet?
It is absurd to think that the United States will somehow be safer if we don’t develop the same technology that every other major power in the world is racing to develop.
AI can’t be stopped at the border. If you’re worried about American companies developing AI, what do you think AI developed by Communist China is going to do to you? If they have AI and we don’t, we will be at their mercy.
Elon Musk has joined the call to set up some guardrails, and that is encouraging to me. Not only is he brilliant, but he was heavily influenced by the works of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and has long had reservations about AI. But Musk is not afraid of new technology, and he is on our side.
What we really need is not a pause on AI, but a pause on the AI panic.
Keeping America Safe
The Trump administration deported Afghan national Nazira Haji Zada back to her home country last month. Zada came to the United States in 2018 on a visa with other family members. Her husband, Abdul, was a former U.S. military contractor and had worked at Bagram Air Force Base.
But completely unbeknownst to Abdul, Nazira had pledged her allegiance to ISIS. She plotted with her son and son-in-law to launch a mass casualty terrorist attack on Election Day 2024. She planned to sell her home and move to ISIS-controlled territory after the Election Day massacre. Thankfully, the FBI broke up the plot.
What makes Zada’s deportation notable is that the Trump Justice Department did not try her case in the normal federal court system. Instead, she was tried in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court—the first time the court has been used since it was created 30 years ago. This special court allows the government to protect classified intelligence information.
Zada was arrested in late July and deported in less than one month, largely because she confessed to being an alien terrorist. The presiding judge ordered her deportation the same day Zada waived her right to appeal. The Justice Department, however, did not announce her deportation until Friday.
“This landmark case, resulting in the prompt removal of this alien terrorist to her country of origin, is a win for national security and the rule of law,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said. He added that the use of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court shows that the Trump administration “will use every tool at its disposal to protect our country.”
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