David Friedberg is criticizing former President Barack Obama’s recent comments about artificial intelligence, arguing that Obama is underestimating the importance of agentic AI and turning one of the most consequential technological developments in history into another political fight.

Obama questioned whether agentic AI is necessary to address major challenges such as cancer and energy, suggesting that society’s needs may not align with the commercial incentives driving technology companies.

“If we are thinking about AI just in terms of how do we cure cancer or get better energy, you can do that without having agentic AI,” Obama said.

“That's a misalignment between what our society needs and the commercial imperatives that these companies are facing.”

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Friedberg strongly disagreed with that assessment, saying Obama’s remarks left him deeply concerned because of the former president’s continued influence.

“These words honestly just they made me like emotionally distressed that if he's a leader that people listen to, and he doesn't really articulate accurately what's going on, it's sad that we've lost the plot,” Friedberg said.

He argued that artificial intelligence should instead be viewed as an enormous opportunity to increase prosperity and improve living standards across society.

“I think it's sad that we aren't all kind of holding hands saying, My God, the future is here and we all get to leap forward and we get to bring people up,” Friedberg said.

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Friedberg connected his criticism directly to themes Obama himself emphasized throughout his political career.

He said Obama frequently spoke about expanding opportunity and giving people the tools to improve their lives, and argued that AI could advance those goals on an unprecedented scale.

“For years, Obama orated beautifully about the importance of bringing people up, about giving people the opportunity to progress, about letting people advance themselves,” Friedberg said.

He described artificial intelligence as potentially one of the strongest equalizing forces available to society.

“And there's never been a more equalizing technology, a better economic opportunity for prosperity for everyone than these technologies, than these tools,” Friedberg said.

Friedberg took particular issue with Obama’s suggestion that solving cancer does not require agentic AI.

He argued that the remark reflected an inadequate understanding of how the technology operates and how it could be applied to difficult scientific and economic problems.

“And to hand wave the word agentic and say we don't need agentic AI to solve cancer, shows how little he actually understands how this technology works and how it's all become just a shorthand for a political fight to what?” Friedberg said.

He then questioned what political objective would justify resisting or limiting a technology that he believes could deliver widespread prosperity.

“What are you fighting for?” Friedberg asked.

“What is the political battle that says I am going to leave half the population behind and I'm going to make an argument against prosperity for all in order to make my party look like a morally superior party, and to cast the other side as bad”

Friedberg’s broader concern is that artificial intelligence is becoming another partisan dividing line rather than a shared technological opportunity.

He warned that political leaders risk framing AI primarily through ideological conflict instead of focusing on its potential to improve productivity, scientific research and economic opportunity.

He compared the development of advanced AI to the discovery of fire, arguing that rejecting the technology because political opponents support it would amount to turning away from a transformative breakthrough.

“when the other side has literally discovered fire, and the world now has fire, and we're going to go take water and throw it on the fire,” Friedberg said.

He concluded the analogy by arguing that political opposition should not be enough to deny everyone access to the benefits of a new technology.

“No one gets fire because the other guys are saying that fire is good.”

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