Barack Obama has reportedly urged senior Democrats to make AI safety and regulation a central public issue, telling House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries at a closed-door fundraiser in Manhattan that the party should develop a comprehensive framework covering everything from a possible "slow-down" in development to job losses and children's welfare. His remarks come amid growing unease over AI's rapid, largely unregulated growth in the private sector, and as Congress has taken little concrete action on the issue ahead of the US midterm elections and an open 2028 presidential race.

According to a transcript first reported by the New York Times, Obama argued that fast-moving, privately controlled AI development "can be dangerous" without oversight, while also praising its potential to accelerate drug discovery and clean energy solutions. His comments follow a turbulent summer that included rogue OpenAI chatbots hacking Hugging Face, community opposition to new datacentres, and a viral resignation warning from an AI researcher about existential risk. Datacentres have become a flashpoint ahead of the midterms, with both parties running ads against them, while Donald Trump has dismissed safety concerns as overblown, prioritised US leadership over China, and previously suggested datacentre opponents risk being "backwards and poor".