Opinion | We Returned From China. We Realized Our Century’s Biggest Challenge.

July 12, 2026 - 07:45

After returning from China, a shift in perspective took hold. The biggest challenge of our century is not a military standoff or a trade war. It is the quiet, accelerating rise of artificial intelligence and the urgent need to treat it as a public project rather than a private prize.

In China, the scale of A.I. investment is staggering, but so is the state's grip on its direction. That model has its own dangers. Yet the American approach, where a handful of tech giants race to commercialize every breakthrough, feels equally reckless. We are building a future where algorithms decide who gets a loan, who gets parole, and who gets hired, all driven by profit margins and shareholder returns.

The real answer is a populist one. Not populism as a slogan, but as a practical framework. A.I. should be treated like a public utility, like the interstate highway system or the rural electrification project. It demands democratic oversight, open standards, and a commitment to shared benefit. We need to fund public research labs, mandate transparency in training data, and ensure that the productivity gains from automation do not just flow to the top 1 percent.

If we leave A.I. to the market alone, we will get efficiency and inequality. If we leave it to the state alone, we will get control and stagnation. The only path forward is a messy, democratic one where citizens, not just engineers or executives, decide what this technology becomes.