The Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, occupies a strange but increasingly common place in modern American politics. He’s praised by progressives, begrudgingly tolerated by moderate Democrats and largely demonized by Republicans.

He’s also uniquely positioned to forge an all-too-elusive thread of political kinship between these perpetually-at-odds groups with his bold but contentious plan for reining in AI, called AI Under Democracy.

And it couldn’t come at a better time. According to a poll conducted this summer by NBC News, 70% of Americans said that they were more worried than excited about AI, a shocking reversal from just a couple of years ago. Another poll from Quinnipiac several weeks ago found that 73% of Americans are concerned about AI posing a threat to human existence.

AI Under Democracy was revealed several weeks before the Michigan Democratic primary. At the time, El-Sayed was still a relative underdog, a physician with threadbare political credentials and views that – it seemed – were woefully misaligned with the moderate, blue-collar sensibilities of Michiganders.

When it comes to his AI plan, and a companion proposal called AI Under Control that he released this month, that may no longer be the case. In fact, it could be a potential antidote to our ideological gridlock over the promise and peril of AI.

Back in 2023, I was invited to be a guest on Abdul El-Sayed’s podcast, America Dissected. Both Michigan natives with backgrounds in public health, El-Sayed and I commiserated over global leaders’ glaring lack of relatability and, by extension, the grating way they dismiss – and often increase –the struggles of everyday people. It all seems quite prescient now.

Barack Obama recently urged Democrats to rally around AI regulation in........

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