In San Francisco, AI engineers are building technologies they say are so powerful they could break the entire internet and destroy the fabric of society. In Washington D.C., policymakers are scrambling to figure out how to regulate those technologies before it’s too late. 

But is it actually possible to regulate artificial intelligence when it’s moving as quickly as it is? 

This question gets at a power struggle that has played out between these two coastal centers for years: Who really controls society? The California engineers disrupting it with AI, or the policymakers tasked with reining it in?

No one is thinking about this more than freelance writer Jasmine Sun (opens in new tab), who describes the SF-DC-AI axis as the “most important story in the world.” Sun lives in San Francisco but has been doing a lot of her recent reporting in Washington, trying to understand what the players there think about the technology and how to regulate it.

Sun joined us for a live taping of “Pacific Standard Time” Thursday at Manny’s in the Mission. We got into the AI partisan divide, how Washington is thinking about jobs, and toward the end of the show, laughed for a full 20 minutes as we grilled Sun on how well her 2026 cultural predictions (opens in new tab) are performing four months into the year. Spoiler: Graza olive oil is still out, y’all; cultured butter is in.

🎧 Listen to the episode on Spotify (opens in new tab), Apple Podcasts, (opens in new tab) and wherever you get your podcasts!
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