AI threats to 2024 election: The lessons we can learn from other tech breakthroughs

Concerns about AI interfering with the 2024 elections are well-founded, yet not unprecedented in recent history. In 1975, the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA foreshadowed today's AI concerns. Asilomar set the precedent on how to respond to changes in scientific knowledge. According to conference organizers, biochemist Paul Berg and molecular biologist Maxine Singer, the proper response to new scientific knowledge was to develop guidelines that governed how to regulate it. They were as wrong as those asking for AI regulation.