At the Abundance conference, right-wing anti-regulation ideals were in abundance

"On the right, at the Westin DC Downtown: NatCon, a gathering of Trump officials and allies calling for the persecution of AI developers and the expulsion of the "insufficiently American." On the left, at the Salamander Hotel on the waterfront: the Abundance Conference, whose annoyingly optimistic proponents envision an American techno-utopia, which could be realized if governments just stopped regulating so damn much."

"And one of those was Gaby Del Valle, a Verge policy reporter, who managed to catch the last day of NatCon before going to Abundance for a separate project. (Gaby is on book leave but, as she put it, came to DC "for the love of the game.") On her first day in town, as we were charging our phones in some hotel lobby, Gaby floated a theory: even though Abundance and NatCon were completely ideologically opposed to each other, the conferences were asking the exact same thing."

Two Washington conferences presented opposing visions for technology policy: NatCon pushed punitive measures against AI developers and cultural expulsion, while Abundance promoted techno-optimism and deregulation. NatCon convened Trump officials and allies advocating aggressive oversight and exclusionary rhetoric. Abundance gathered proponents who argued reduced government regulation could unlock an American techno-utopia. Most attendees gravitated toward one event or the other, but some visited both. A reporter who attended both observed that, despite stark ideological differences, the two gatherings were asking the same fundamental question about technology’s future and who should determine its direction.

Read at The Verge