If we give fusion energy and AI tools a chance instead of being anxious about them, the future of society could be equally exciting and promising. Joining David Ramadan to discuss these topics is a most unique guest: 75-year-old Congressman Don Beyer, who has recently returned to school at George Mason University to study computer science. Together, they discuss how fusion power plants can produce virtually limitless energy that could solve the climate crisis and alleviate poverty. They also shed light on how AI, no matter how complicated it becomes, can be used to improve and speed up work processes, particularly in the government. This conversation on the intersection of technology, energy, and democracy will open your eyes to the surprisingly hopeful tomorrow for America.
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I'm very excited about this guest. He wears a lot of hats. Businessman, former Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, former US Ambassador, and a Senior Member of Congress representing Northern Virginia. He's also, I should note, a George Mason student. We'll talk about that. Congressman Don Beyer is pursuing a graduate study in Computer Science, but there was a requirement to do before he starts his Master's in Machine Learning here at George Mason. He'll tell us about it. He serves in the House of Representatives, where he is at the center of major conversations on technology, artificial intelligence, and energy policy, including leadership roles on AI legislation and fusion energy.
Congressman, welcome
Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of the show. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
How Congressman Beyer Found His Way Back To School
It is always great to have you. Let's dive right in. Let's start with your story and the Mason connection. Tell us a little bit. Tell our audience how their congressman ends up at Mason at this time and age. Where does the story begin? How did your career begin, and how did it take you to Congress? Why are you back in the classroom?
I'm 75. That's a long story. It’s too boring for a show. I do remember many years ago, one of my wonderful sisters and I worked together in the family business, selling cars. Her husband was a George Mason University law student. We were sweating bullets for two years to see whether the law school would be accredited. It was the old Cannes Shopping Center in Arlington with the escalators and everything.
Department store escalators. I remember those.
Some years later, I got to be on the 123 Club, which is this little group of business leaders led by George Johnson, who is the famous president of George Mason. He was the one who took George Mason up, from no one ever hearing of it to a nationally ranked research university.
Agreed.
George was this larger-than-life character. It was inevitable that I would fall in love with George Mason as a very important part of our community. When we brag and say Amazon HQ2 decided to locate in Northern Virginia, it was not because we offered them more money. We didn't offer them any money until they created jobs. We didn't bribe them to come here. Instead, we said, “Look at the workforce. Look at the young men and women studying at places like George Mason, which you can build on for the future.” They came for the young people that we have here, and the young people are here because we have George Mason.
Agreed. Why computer science? Tell us what you are doing. We are recording on December 8th, 2025. This will play out in a couple of weeks. You told me before we started that you have your final exam coming up in a couple of days in an undergraduate class. What happened there?
I was always a math nerd in high school. I studied economics and physics in college, but then ended up being a car dealer, which involved a lot of math. Although most of the math you need to sell cars, you knew in fourth grade. It was fun. I always maintained an interest in puzzles and physics. Years ago, I became modestly aware that there were breakthroughs in mathematics that enabled us to take large amounts of data and see the connections within them. It’s what they used to call deep mining. I tried to take an online course in Coursera from Stanford on artificial intelligence, which was fascinating. Quickly, I realized that I didn't know how to code. I didn't know Python, C, or anything. Also, I had never taken linear algebra. It was quickly over my head, so I set it aside.
On a visit a few years ago to George Mason to look at one of the new, very cool labs in Arlington, I dropped the question, “Do you think I could study here?” They looked skeptical, but I applied anyway. I’m finishing my tenth undergraduate course. Sadly, I needed ten undergraduate courses to be semi-qualified to enter the graduate program. I'll start my first one in January 2026, which is Computer Science 531. I'm looking forward to it, though.
How Congressman Beyer Became Interested In AI
That is awesome. Going back to school, if I may say so, at your age and going for undergraduate courses so that you can qualify for your graduate degree in informatics is very commendable and respectable. Thank you for doing that. Let's explain to the audience the why of all of this. You mentioned AI and the need for that. As a legislator, and I can relate because I legislated on a state level, people would come to us with all kinds of things. I would tell people all the time, “I understand three things in life. I understand business, politics, and higher education. Anything else, you'll have to educate me.”
When they came and talked to me about agriculture, I had no idea. I had to go to a colleague to learn about agriculture and the difference between a dairy cow and a meat cow. People come to you with all kinds of things. Ultimately, we are either voting on bills or writing bills. We are writing laws that affect everybody's life. You get interested in AI. You, in Congress, are about to start legislating AI. That's what prompted this, so that you will be an informed and smart legislator, not somebody who writes what others give them. Tell us a little more about that, if you don't mind.
One of the things I realized fairly quickly is that there are very few people with a science background in Congress. If you think about it, there are people who are drawn to political science and, to a lesser extent, economics, but also governance. There are 2 PhD scientists out of 535 members of the House and Senate. Not my natural skills, but my natural interest in it, I thought it would be fun to do this. I get to co-chair the Artificial Intelligence Caucus. I get to serve on the 24-person special task force on AI. I get to be in the middle of the conversation on something that's extraordinarily important for the future of our country and our planet.
I'll send you the article. The former President of George Mason, my good friend Angela Cabrera, who is now President of Georgia Tech, his alma mater, wrote an article about teaching in higher ed with AI. He made the statement that AI has become smarter than any of us. We can throw in tantrums and say, “We don't want to teach with AI or teach AI,” and keep it out of the classroom. He didn't say dumb. I'm saying it's dumb to do so. He came down to a few things, such as what we should be doing. One, teach AI. Two, teach with AI. Three, work with AI. Four, make AI help people. I may have rephrased his points here, but AI is part and parcel of everything we do going forward in our era and our age. Do you agree?
I very much do agree. People use it in so many different ways. I've found that in my computer science classes, we are not allowed to use AI for our projects, our homework, and things like that. That's the way it should be. However, I find whenever I have a question or when I don't understand something in the textbook or from the lectures, I can go back to Claude and say, “Why does this make sense?” I would get nice explanations. It has become like a tutor, in a way, that helps develop the understanding that you need to do the work on your own.
It's a good tutor for students. I describe it in my everyday work as a set of very smart assistants, whether it's teacher's aids for my graduate classes I teach or for day-to-day life. I have a set of smart graduate-level assistants that, when I give them a task, instead of taking them days to come back with answers, it takes them seconds or minutes to come back with answers.
I'm getting so much of my team down the hill. They're all very good writers, but I'm amazed at how quickly they turn out 4 and 5-page documents for me to read.
How Going Back To School Influenced Congressman Beyer’s Legislation
ChatGPT is the best $20 a month. Good for them. Enough on AI for now. Let me ask you a question about being a student before we jump to talking a little bit about energy, and you've been at the forefront of that. How does being a student again influence the way you think about policy and legislation on emerging technologies or anything else? Did that change a little bit of your perspective?
Yes, although in subtle ways. For example, being surrounded by the young people at George Mason. I've been taking undergraduate classes, so probably the top age has been 22. There are lots of 18, 19, and 20-year-olds. As a 75-year-old, you don't get a chance to hang around people that age much, but I've been very impressed. They’re serious. They work hard. They ask good questions. They're warm. It's an incredibly diverse campus. It makes me very optimistic about the future that if this is who we're turning out to be, this is good for America. What comes through also with that is kindness. No one has to be nice to me, this old guy who is overdressed for class, but they've been good.
The other thing that has been helpful is the sense that artificial intelligence is changing in dramatic ways, the way our workforce is going to work. Nine percent of recent college graduates, 1 and 2 years out, are unemployed. One of the highest times it has been in history. The first wave of AI replacing jobs is in entry-level jobs, whether it's in a law firm, accounting firm, or businesses of all kinds, including coders. We have an enormous responsibility, those of us in public service like you and me, to try to figure out how we manage the job displacement that AI is going to bring. I don't have any easy answers, but I do know it's a very serious question.
The common saying is that AI is not going to replace your job, but somebody who knows how to use AI is going to replace your job. I believe in that.
Instead of just being coders, they've jumped up a level or two, or three, to manage the processes that do the coding. My middle daughter was a coder for ten years. She made a lot of money, but ultimately quit to paint because she was bored. The whole code monkey thing. At a certain point, sitting at a desk by yourself and doing if and while loops gets boring. You need something more fulfilling, and AI perhaps can take you to a more fulfilling role.
Tweet: At a certain point, sitting on a desk will become boring. AI can eliminate unnecessary tasks and bring you to a more fulfilling role.
True. How good are her paintings?
I'm her father.
Understanding How Fusion Energy Works
That's great. Let's pivot to energy, if you don't mind, especially fusion. You've been out front on this. Why are we focused on fusion energy? Start by explaining fusion energy to our audience. I had the privilege of hearing this from you in my class when you came and spoke to my graduate class. I'll invite you again in January or February 2026 when you have time. Please explain to the average reader what we are talking about and why fusion energy.
Fusion energy is the energy of the sun and all the stars. The first energy force is gravity. After that, fusion. All the energy sources we have in our lives. Coal, wood, solar, or any of that stuff all come from the power of the sun, which comes from fusion. Fusion energy, at its most basic, is the simplest atom, which is hydrogen. It is typically 1 proton and 1 electron. If you hammer two of them together to form a second element, helium, with 2 protons and 2 electrons, it throws off an enormous amount of energy.
I read that 1 kilogram of fusion energy that hydrogen throws off is something like 10,000 times as much energy as a kilogram of coal. It was way more. The only dilemma is that you need to be on the sun to make it happen. We discovered it in the 1930s, and it was only in the last couple of years that we created a fusion reaction on Earth that generated more power than it took to create it.
Tweet: One kilogram of fusion energy is 10,000 times as much energy as a kilogram of coal.
There are 28 US companies and many more around the world trying to be the first to do fusion on Earth. The raw material is seawater. There's no radioactive waste. The only thing it sets off is power and a little bit of helium, which is an inert gas. We can't smell it. We can't see it. We need it for medical purposes. It's one of those deals where we could kill a lot of birds with one stone.
Climate change is caused by dumping all this carbon fuel into the atmosphere. We'd no longer need to do very much of that. We'd use carbon for things like plastics and stuff, but not much. The great source of poverty is the lack of energy anywhere in the world, whether it is in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, or the like. All of a sudden, if you have a very low-cost energy source, you could take the last two billion people still living in abject poverty and lift them into the middle class. It would transform mankind.
Where are we in reality on that, in actual production? Is something coming in Virginia? Where are we in a number of years?
Virginia's probably 2030. That's fast. It's almost 2026. They're going to break ground on the first-ever fusion energy power plant in world history in Chesterfield County, Virginia, next year, 2026. Our new governor will be there to toss some dirt. There are plants going up in Seattle by 2028 and in Southern California by 2031. It'll probably be 10 years from now, 2035, before we see meaningful fusion energy on the grid across the country. That goes pretty fast. We have an opportunity with unlimited energy to fix a lot of other problems.
Are your colleagues in Congress on board with fusion energy?
Yes, they are. Our little fusion caucus has about 112 members in it. The only reason it doesn't have 400 is the time limitation to get people to sign up. The big challenge, though, is that we've not been able to put a lot of federal money behind this. We don't want to fund individual factories without doing any of that. There's a very interesting and important plan to put $10 billion into it to solve science problems and engineering problems that will benefit anybody working on fusion anywhere in the world. This is what the government should do. Do the basic research, let other people apply it, and figure out how to put it on the electrical grid.
How To Remain Optimistic About Fusion And Other Renewable Energies
Thank you. For students and young professionals who care about climate and energy, how should they think about fusion alongside renewables and other technologies? What can students at Mason do to help with that?
In the short and medium run, we need all the above to handle all the energy demands. From 2000 to 2020, there was very little electricity growth in demand globally. It has surged again, so we're back to the 1930s. Some of these data centers, a lot of it is air conditioning in much of the world. China leads us in the electrification of its economy, but we're following little by little.
From a student perspective, we need to continue to push for solar, wind, and geothermal, and continue to shut down the coal plants that are existing. No one's building new coal plants. All the existing coal plants have an internal deadline to get rid of them. My basic news for the students is to be optimistic. Many people have been pessimistic about what's happening with climate change. It's real. We're not hitting the 2.5 degrees centigrade that we hope to, but there is hope down the road.
You said all the above. If I may push back for a second, you also said we need to continue to shut down all the coal. Even the gas and energy that we're buying in Virginia from West Virginia are being bought from coal production. Don't those two clash with all the above and shut down the coal at this time?
It's timing issues. The energy dominion is buying coal-generated power because it needs the power. That will happen in the short-term. There have been many coal plants that have been shut down over the years. One of the things that the president is trying to do is extend the life of ones that are still running until we catch up. We're going through a transition period.
Fusion energy is not here yet. We were growing incredibly quickly in solar and wind, although Donald Trump has tried to slow that down a lot. Ironically, I had a meeting with the Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, who pointed out that the cost per kilowatt hour for solar and wind is so low that fossil fuels can't compete. They're not getting the new investment in fracking and stuff unless they can make solar and wind more expensive, which is one of the reasons why Trump is trying to shut them down.
Interesting. Last question on energy, back to fusion. What is a realistic win on fusion twenty years from now? Are we producing most of our energy out of fusion, or is it something else?
The back of the envelope is that we need 10,000 fewer power plants across the entire world to power the world with fusion. If by 2045, we have a couple of thousand here in the United States, we'll be in a very different place. First of all, look at how different the environment changed in 2020 and 2021 when we stopped driving cars because of COVID. The air is a lot cleaner. The particle stuff went way down. Climate change slowed. We can have that kind of impact.
There's one other subtlety that is exciting. Before the Inflation Reduction Act, there were only two companies in the world that were doing carbon capture, taking all the carbon we've dumped into the environment out of the air. One from Switzerland, and one from Canada. There are 200 startups in the United States. The dilemma is to take carbon out of the area. You have to burn carbon to energize it. Basically, it is a one-for-one swap. One, we don't need to burn carbon. When we can use fusion to take the carbon out of the air. We can reverse climate change. We'll have to do it carefully because it took 400 years to get there. We don't want to reverse it all in 5 or 10. We don't know what the consequence of that would be.
Are our allies and adversaries overseas working on fusion as well?
China, sadly, is significantly ahead of us. They are spending lots more money. China is treating it as we did the Manhattan Project, as a national emergency. We are not. We're reliant on the private sector so far. Part of my job and the job of a fusion caucus is to get that sense of pressure and urgency to this administration and the ones to come.
I like to see things always cup half full. That is good news for the environment. China is one of the biggest abusers. If they start producing fusion, that is good for the environment.
They're selling solar and wind to countries all around the world. Tom Friedman wrote a wonderful book years ago called The World is Flat, in which he said the country that dominates green energy will dominate the 21st century. China read the book, and we didn't.
How To Become Less Fearful And Anxious With AI
Interesting. Let's put this together, related to constituents, to our brethren, to your constituents, and our neighbors. When you are working on the intersection of technology, governance, public trust, and faith in institutions, which we're seeing quite a bit of a lack of, how are you talking to constituents? What are you hearing about the hype versus the fear?
Let me break that into two pieces. There's, number one, the fear about AI. The areas we represent, you and I, are the most educated congressional districts in the country. The income levels are pretty high compared to the rest. There's much more anxiety about AI than excitement. The excitement tends to be around all the medical breakthroughs, which are happening on a day-to-day basis.
The fears are job displacement, which we talked about, but also privacy issues. You talk about anonymized data. Nothing's going to be anonymous. If you put it in ChatCPT, they'll be able to figure out who Dave Ramadan is pretty quickly, even to the standpoint of what it means in terms of people being able to generate smallpox on a desktop DNA machine or figure out how to build dangerous weapons.
There’s also the existential risk. We've never lived with anything smarter than we are. What happens when there are entities, whether they have consciousness or not, that are smarter than we are? The computer scientists come back to what they call the alignment problem. How do we know that artificial superintelligence will want the same things that we want? If they don't, if you read Jared Diamond's wonderful Guns, Germs, and Steel, the first thing we did when we got to a new continent was kill all the big animals, anything that would compete with us. What’s to keep if artificial superintelligence is deciding it doesn't need us? There's a risk that we have to think about.
You're scaring our readers more than assuring them at this point.
There’s a new book out by Yudkowsky and Soares, which I recommend everyone, called, If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies. It's not a long read, but it's a scary read and an important read.
I'll have to pick that up for the Christmas break.
It's not good Christmas reading. As Nate Soares, one of the authors, said, even the most enthusiastic AI leaders say, “There might only be a 10% chance of an ending civilization,” but a 10% chance is very real. We can't ignore that. On the other hand, you talked about trust in institutions. Maybe the Civil War isn’t divided as it is now, but it's very divided.
Tweet: Even the most enthusiastic leaders say that there is only a 10% chance of AI ending civilization. However, it is still a 10% chance we cannot ignore.
I'm desperate for a president who wants to heal us and bring us together. That's not who we have right now. My priority for the next president will be someone who decides to help figure out what our American identity is overall, bring us together, and remind us that we are all good people who love each other, love our communities, and love our country. We need to be working together rather than fighting one against the other.
Amen to that. That is music to my ears. This immigrant still believes in the greatness of this country. My saying has been, “Every day is a great day in this great country, even the bad days.” We've had a lot of bad days, but it's still the greatest country on earth. It's still the city shining on the hill despite all of our problems. I'm with you. I'm yearning for a president who brings us together.
How AI Will Impact Our Democratic System And Ideals
Do you have any fear for democracy related to AI? Not on the political side. We all fear for democracy from what we're seeing with the challenges to our democratic process. When we take it back to AI and technology, that intersection and some of the misinformation it is causing out there, do you fear for democracy from that point of view?
I know this is not intended to be a political conversation, but so many traditions, rules, laws, and constitutional provisions have been ignored or broken. That's very concerning. I don't get too gloomy about it, though, because I know so many people across the political spectrum, hard Republicans, who would never vote for me, who were nevertheless good people. They love their country, love their families, and would help me if I were ever in trouble. I believe in who we are as a people. Certainly, there are bad people who do bad things, but that has always been true and always will be true. We will come around to putting the right people in place for the enormous crises that we face.
Congressman Beyer’s Message To The Next Generation
Let's wrap this up with some advice from your decades of experience to our students. There is a lot of citizenism and burnout among students and student leaders. What would you say to Mason students who are skeptical about getting into politics or public service?
For all those who are skeptical and cynical, the first thing to do is go be part of a campaign, whether it be a democratic campaign, republican campaign, or anything like that. That wakes you up right away because you see right away that the people who are involved in it, regardless of ideology, are there because they want to make a difference. They want to make things better for people. There are different ideas of how best to do that, as we see in the fights over healthcare.
There's no reason to be cynical. It's easy to be cynical when you're not involved. When you get involved in it, you get caught up in the importance of it. I end up with about sixteen interns per year, often from George Mason. I promise you that when they leave after thirteen weeks in our office, they become very excited about the political system.
Excellent advice. What's one leadership lesson from your career that you think every student leader should hear?
Let me give you two. The old James MacGregor Burns definition of leadership is vision and agenda. You have to have a vision. You have to be able to decide what the world is like or what your leadership is like, and who's going to do what by when. What's the agenda to get there? The other throwaway advice I found is that the most important part of leadership is raising your hand. You end up in leadership positions again and again because you're the one who steps forward and says, “I'll do that,” however humble. All the leaders that we've been around our lives are the ones who stepped forward and said, “I'll take that on.” If you don't step forward, you're never going to be a leader.
Especially if they're coming to it from a servant leadership point of view.
Servant leadership is the actual heart of it. It's never about you. It's about those that you're taking care of.
Tweet: Leadership is never about you. It is about the people you are taking care of.
If you were to leave Mason students with one piece of advice about combining tech literacy and public service, what would that be?
I think they go together. There's not enough tech literacy in public service. I had a young man run against me in the election a few years ago. I was impressed with him. He was a very good computer program person in his mid 30s. He wanted to bring his skillset to solve a lot of the bureaucratic problems in government. Congress was probably not the right place to do that, but his desire was real and important.
Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words
Any final thoughts, Congressman?
I'm thrilled to be part of this community. Thank you for teaching there. I'm very optimistic about America's future and, specifically, Virginia's future because we head George Mason.
Thank you for joining us and for bringing your perspective from Capitol Hill and your experience as a fellow Mason student into the conversation. You are one of my favorite speakers. I enjoy having you in my graduate class every year. I look forward to having you again in January or February 2026 for my graduate seminar.
For our audience, there's a reason why I enjoy and learn from Congressman Beyer all the time. I'm sure it was evident to you. As I say to his face and behind his back all the time, he's one of the most intellectual members of Congress. You can find all episodes of the show at Schar.gmu.edu/podcast or wherever you get your shows. We're syndicated on all the major programs. Until next time, stay informed, stay engaged, and stay connected to the work happening here at George Mason University. Have a wonderful holiday.
Important Links
- Congressman Don Beyer
- Congressman Don Beyer on Instagram
- Congressman Don Beyer on Facebook
- The World is Flat
- Guns, Germs, and Steel
- If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies
About Hon. Don Beyer
Congressman Don Beyer is serving his fifth term as the U.S. Representative from Virginia’s 8th District, representing Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and parts of Fairfax County. He serves on Congress' Joint Economic Committee, and also serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means.
He was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1998, and was Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein under President Obama. Rep. Beyer’s signature work as lieutenant governor included advocacy for Virginians with disabilities and ensuring protections for Virginia’s most vulnerable populations as the Commonwealth reformed its welfare system in the mid-1990s. Rep. Beyer was Virginia’s Democratic nominee for governor in 1997.
After leaving office, Rep. Beyer spent fourteen years as Chair of Jobs for Virginia Graduates, a highly successful high school dropout prevention program, and was active for a decade on the board of the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. As Chair of the Virginia Economic Recovery Commission, he helped pass permanent pro-business reforms and was co-founder of the Northern Virginia Technology Council.
President Obama nominated Rep. Beyer to serve as Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein in 2009. He used his position to advocate for stricter sanctions to compel Iran to begin nuclear disarmament discussions. As Ambassador, Rep. Beyer was integral to US Department of Justice efforts to halt the abuses of Swiss bank secrecy by wealthy Americans.
Rep. Beyer has spent four decades building his family business in Northern Virginia after a summer job at a car dealership in 1974. He is a graduate of Williams College and Gonzaga College High School in Washington, DC. He was named a Presidential Scholar by President Lyndon Johnson.
Rep. Beyer has four children and two grandchildren. He and his wife Megan live in Alexandria, Virginia.