5 questions for Rep. Ro Khanna

June 30, 2025

By Anthony Adragna

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has been one of the more nuanced Democratic critics of the tech sector during President Donald Trump’s second administration. Khanna, whose district covers Silicon Valley, continues to talk up the promise of the sector even as he criticizes tech luminaries like Elon Musk and David Sacks, who he’s known for years, for cozying up (before, in Musk’s case, a very public breakup) to the president. Musk actually wrote a testimonial for a 2012 book by Khanna, who worked in the Commerce Department during the Obama administration at the time.

Khanna speaks with us about how the government needs to think about bolstering career paths in a world dominated by artificial intelligence, and how the tech ecosystem is laden with companies using AI as a buzzword.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

What’s one underrated big idea?

Biotechnology integration with AI has not gotten the attention it should. An AI’s use in being able to discover new patterns with proteins and identify new possibilities for gene therapy and drugs is extraordinary, and there’s a possibility for exponential advances in medicine over this next decade.

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

There’s a lot of business plans for startups now that have the word AI in them. It’s almost like to get funding, you need to do something AI, and like the time of startups during the .com boom, many of those companies aren’t making substantive contributions and will be weeded out.

But there are a lot of companies doing substantive things with AI that will thrive. But, you know, it’s become trendy to describe almost every company in Silicon Valley as an AI company.

What could the government be doing regarding technology that it isn’t?

We need to make sure every kid in America has an understanding of AI and can use the tools of AI for their jobs.

Whether someone is going to be a nurse, an electrician, a writer, a health care worker, they’re going to need to use the basic AI tools and technology. Proficiency needs to be as common as reading and writing in our schools.

We also need to think about what a job strategy looks like in AI, especially for young Americans. College graduates between the ages of 21 and 29 have a 15 percent unemployment rate. [We need to think] about what path there will be for young lawyers and young health care professionals, young college graduates with AI.

The government needs to really think about the opportunities that are going to exist for those jobs and how to create them.

What book most shaped your conception of the future?

Right now, I’m reading “Abundance,” about building more and building faster in America, and that outcome is a common aspiration that I think many Americans share.

What has surprised you the most this year with regards to tech?

The rapidness with which AI models are progressing. The rapidness with which they’re being adopted in certain industries and the concern of jobs for, particularly young college graduates, and the concern about how we’re going to address the economic prospects in a digital world.

Issues: Economy , Equality and Social Justice , Internet and Technology