While the Elon Musk–Sam Altman trial in Oakland, Calif., is dominating headlines this week, 3,000 miles away, a Capitol Hill event with far less fanfare may prove even more significant for the future of AI in America. On Wednesday evening, Sen. Bernie Sanders hosted a panel featuring top Chinese AI officials tied to Beijing’s Ministry of Science and Technology — including Xue Lan of Tsinghua University and Zeng Yi of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance — to discuss the “existential threat” of artificial intelligence and the need for international cooperation. The gathering is a striking illustration of how AI doomerism — the belief that advanced AI poses an existential threat to humanity — has quietly forged one of the stranger coalitions in modern politics. Socialists, Hollywood unions, Jan. 6 organizers and Chinese government officials are now aligned in trying to slow down American AI development under the guise of saving humanity. Sen.…