How would James Talarico regulate AI if elected to the US Senate?

James Talarico said Congress has been absent on AI and named three priorities for a regulatory framework: protecting workers so AI makes jobs easier rather than erasing them, protecting children from chatbots and the harms seen with social media, and protecting elections from deepfake ads, which he said have already appeared in his own Texas Senate race. He also wants AI companies taxed to fund entrepreneurship grants and argues people deserve compensation when their intellectual property trains these systems.

• Bartlett estimated about 400,000 Texans work as professional drivers, or over half a million including gig workers.
• Talarico wants a human supervisor on self-driving 18-wheelers, comparing it to pilots on planes that mostly fly themselves.
• Talarico said an AI expert warned him of a future with five trillionaires and 30% unemployment.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett (2026-11-02). Read the whole episode summary →

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