HAWLEY: AI Threatens the Working Man

The following are remarks as prepared by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Sept. 4 at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C.

It is always such a pleasure to be with you. In a city characterized by much talk, much of it frivolous (I mean, have you been to the Senate recently?), the National Conservatism Conference has become known as a place for serious conversation about the most important political institution we share: the republic.

I want to attempt my own small contribution to that conversation this morning, and I thought I might start with a story, an old one, maybe one you remember from your school days—the epic of Gilgamesh, the mythical King of Uruk. His adventures are among the oldest writings we have, recorded on twelve tablets of clay dating from approximately 2100 BC.

The first few tablets rehearse Gilgamesh’s exploits as a builder and warrior and introduce us to a number of themes that become recurring hits in later mythology. He spurns a marriage proposal arranged by the goddess of love, for example, and then loses a friend in the inevitable revenge tour.

But by the ninth and tenth tablets, Gilgamesh has developed a new fear—death, and a new obsession—escaping it. He embarks on a mighty quest to find a survivor of the Great Flood (a sort of stand-in for Noah), with the purpose of asking him how to cheat mortality. The answer, he learns by tablet 11, is a plant that renews youth—forever. A veritable tree of life. Armed with this knowledge, Gilgamesh makes a diligent search and eventually finds it—only to watch the plant be consumed, in the last instant, by a serpent, that anti-human symbol of chaos and evil.

So, Gilgamesh must return to Uruk, still mortal—but still human.

For ancient auditors, th