California Governor Candidate Warns about AI’s Critical Threat to Humanity
Zoltan Istvan was previously a figurehead of the Transhumanist party in the United States and is currently running for California governor as a Democrat. He believes politicians aren’t nearly as worried about the threat of artificial intelligence as they should be.
If guardrails aren’t implemented to curb AI’s potential power, the two-time presidential candidate believes humanity might be at risk. BeInCrypto sat down with Istvan to discuss these threats and how he envisions a world where humans and robots coexist.
From Immortality to AI ConcernsZoltan Istvan is an outsider to the traditional political scene in the United States. He describes himself as a libertarian but considers universal basic income necessary for social harmony. Istvan believes that, soon enough, science will find a way to reverse aging and achieve human immortality.
He also founded his political party based on the philosophy of transhumanism. Through this platform, Istvan advocates for the widespread development and availability of new and future technologies to significantly improve human longevity and overall well-being.
More recently, however, Istvan temporarily set aside his focus on longevity. Instead, a stronger sense of moral duty compelled him to run for California governor: to warn Americans about the dire threat artificial intelligence could pose once it achieves cognitive superiority over humans.
A lot of Americans will be more disoriented than ever because their limbic systems are too sensitive for the bot farms, AI videos, and paid clickbaiters. We are fighting an uphill battle against weaponized algorithms. This is a major national security threat that's being ignored.
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) May 30, 2025 Is Superintelligence an Existential Threat?Artificial intelligence has grown exponentially in recent years, with some figures, like Elon Musk, predicting that superintelligence could arrive as early as 2026. For Istvan, this poses a major problem for civilization.
“Today, I would say that the greatest challenge humanity faces and the one we must deal with is making sure that artificial intelligence remains beneficial to us and doesn’t become a super intelligence that we cannot control,” he told BeInCrypto.
His reasoning for this varies, but among his primary concerns is the fear that humanoids could reproduce, overpower humans, and accumulate more wealth than all humanity combined.
Despite this looming reality, Istvan is disappointed that AI’s rapid pace of development isn’t a more prominent topic on the political agenda.
“Nobody wants to talk about AI. When you talk about winning votes, nobody wants to hear a problem that can’t be solved. Nobody wants to hear that 99 percent of jobs will potentially be lost to automation and robots within five, ten years time. This is not a winning strategy for a politician,” he said.
Nonetheless, these problems need potential solutions. Istvan has some in mind.
Who Controls AI’s Future?One major concern about AI’s exponential growth is the concentrated power that the corporations developing it hold over its future.
“Really only billionaires own AI with their companies and that’s a scary thing. Some people like Ben Goertzel argue that if we decentralize, then maybe we’ll have a better chance of having an AI that’s nicer to us if it becomes a superintelligence,” Isvtan told BeInCrypto.
However, regulations are needed for a more effective approach. If they’re collaborative, even better.
“I think the other way to do it is just to try to create guardrails. Governments around the world, maybe [the] United States, China and Russia –the countries that are leading AI development– can kind of get together and say, listen, we need to be very careful how we do this. We can’t just let the super intelligence be born and then we wait for the consequences,” Istvan added.
However, he recognized that the chances of this happening are slim. Because of this, it’s up to the United States to take matters into its own hands.
A good way of getting there is by creating awareness of this threat, especially from a position of power.
None of this is real — not even the actors. What you're seeing was created by Google's AI, Veo 3.
Hollywood is facing an existential threat. Governments must act now to severely restrict such content before it destroys traditional cinema.pic.twitter.com/bXAbchhcJm
If Istvan were elected as California’s next governor, the first few policy changes he would enact would effectively work towards establishing guardrails to avoid the detrimental effects of rapid AI development.
In his view, AI’s efficiency will profoundly affect humanity by causing widespread job losses, even among highly educated individuals.
“AI is going to make it so those super smart people that have PhDs and master’s degrees can’t just find another job. So if the very smartest of us cannot find jobs, then definitely the middle and lower classes are not going to be able to find jobs. So if that happens, no one’s gonna be able to find jobs. We’re facing this job apocalypse,” Istvan told BeInCrypto.
A key solution to address this problem, particularly in reducing extreme poverty, involves establishing a universal basic income as a financial safety net for everyone.
“I’m willing to consider any universal basic income. If a company takes a job with the robots from somebody, that company either has to figure out a way to support that human being or support the government in a way that we can support that human being. That might involve giving shares of the company [or] that might involve just cash payouts,” Istvan added.
He also circled back to the basic principles of transhumanism. Istvan argued that the same efficiency that threatens humanity could also be used to improve human life.
A short clip of me talking about the challenges of AI; it's from my recent keynote at FAU's Mindfest! #zoltan2026 pic.twitter.com/K4YOZs82hI
— Zoltan Istvan