What if AI were in charge of public policy and politics?

A thought experiment suggests that if AI were in charge of public policy, it would shift food subsidies, electrify transport, build cheap power, sign the plastics treaty, restore aid, and feed everyone for a rounding error on the weapons budget, highlighting that political paralysis stems from incentive misalignment rather than intellectual limits.

Should we let AI govern us? What if AI were in charge of public policy and politics? Perhaps it would shift food subsidies, electrify transport, build cheap power, sign the plastics treaty, restore the aid, and feed everyone for a rounding error on the weapons budget. The experiment would not show how smart machines are. It would show that our paralysis is not intellectual. We lack a decision-maker whose incentives point at the future instead of the next election.