5 questions for Rep. Ro Khanna

Politico

11 hours ago

With help from Aaron Mak
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has been one of the more nuanced Democratic critics of the tech sector during President Donald Trump's second administration. Khanna, whose district covers Silicon Valley, continues to talk up the promise of the sector even as he criticizes tech luminaries like Elon Musk and David Sacks, who he's known for years, for cozying up (before, in Musk's case, a very public breakup) to the president. Musk actually wrote a testimonial for a 2012 book by Khanna, who worked in the Commerce Department during the Obama administration at the time.
Khanna speaks with us about how the government needs to think about bolstering career paths in a world dominated by artificial intelligence, and how the tech ecosystem is laden with companies using AI as a buzzword.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
What's one underrated big idea?
Biotechnology integration with AI has not gotten the attention it should. An AI's use in being able to discover new patterns with proteins and identify new possibilities for gene therapy and drugs is extraordinary, and there's a possibility for exponential advances in medicine over this next decade.
What's a technology that you think is overhyped?
There's a lot of business plans for startups now that have the word AI in them. It's almost like to get funding, you need to do something AI, and like the time of startups during the .com boom, many of those companies aren't making substantive contributions and will be weeded out.
But there are a lot of companies doing substantive things with AI that will thrive. But, you know, it's become trendy to describe almost every company in Silicon Valley as an AI company.
What could the government be doing regarding technology that it isn't?
We need to make sure every kid in America has an understanding of AI and can use the tools of AI for their jobs.
Whether someone is going to be a nurse, an electrician, a writer, a health care worker, they're going to need to use the basic AI tools and technology. Proficiency needs to be as common as reading and writing in our schools.
We also need to think about what a job strategy looks like in AI, especially for young Americans. College graduates between the ages of 21 and 29 have a 15 percent unemployment rate. [We need to think] about what path there will be for young lawyers and young health care professionals, young college graduates with AI.
The government needs to really think about the opportunities that are going to exist for those jobs and how to create them.
What book most shaped your conception of the future?
Right now, I'm reading 'Abundance,' about building more and building faster in America, and that outcome is a common aspiration that I think many Americans share.
What has surprised you the most this year with regards to tech?
The rapidness with which AI models are progressing. The rapidness with which they're being adopted in certain industries and the concern of jobs for, particularly young college graduates, and the concern about how we're going to address the economic prospects in a digital world.
Moolenaar goes on offense
After introducing a bill virtually banning federal use of AI linked to foreign adversaries earlier this week, House China Chair John Moolenaar is now urging the Trump administration to implement specific measures to constrain China's influence in the AI sector.
In a Friday letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Moolenaar (R-Mich.) pushed eight recommendations for guardrails to strengthen the U.S.'s strategic position in its AI race with China. The recommendations include recruiting allies to keep China away from AI supply chains and implementing stricter security requirements for overseas data centers.
Moolenaar has been mounting a campaign to promote an 'America First AI Policy,' which he describes in his letter as 'protect[ing] our lead in artificial intelligence and prevent[ing] the People's Republic of China (PRC) from co-opting the global AI ecosystem.' Moolenaar, in an interview with DFD earlier this month, stressed the importance of preventing chip smuggling and warned of China using AI for surveillance and propaganda.
Scientific 'refugees' flee the U.S.
The first cadre of American researchers are taking advantage of France's €15 million bid to recruit disaffected scientists.
POLITICO Europe's Victor Goury-Laffont reported on Thursday that eight applicants are in the final stages of joining Aix-Marseille University's Safe Place for Science program in France, which will hire 20 U.S. academics who feel 'threatened in their research.' Nearly 300 people have applied.
Many of the final applicants have not publicly disclosed their identities, but they include two researchers studying climate change and one studying judicial systems, as well as a biological anthropologist. Northern Illinois University history professor Brian Sandberg, one of the applicants whose research includes climate change during the Little Ice Age period from roughly the 16th to 19th centuries, told POLITICO, 'The entire system of research and the entire education in the United States is really under attack.'
France and the European Union have started initiatives to attract U.S. academic talent as President Donald Trump has moved to cut billions of dollars in federal research funding across the country. In response to the administration's actions, Aix-Marseille University President Eric Berton and former French President François Hollande have called for the creation of a new 'scientific refugee' status that would extend immigration support to academics.
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