Welder turned lawmaker sees a ‘nuclear bomb for work’ — and a chance to help blue collar Americans

Before AI threatened to reshape the kind of blue-collar work he once did, Rep.

Riley Moore was a welder on an Appalachian mining operation.

Now, as the technology races into the workplace, Moore argues it could make workers like him safer and more productive rather than replace them.

The West Virginia Republican has taken that message to the Teamsters and other labor stakeholders as Congress and businesses grapple with how quickly AI should reshape the workplace and how much of a role government should play amid economic and national security concerns.

"I started my career off as a welder and I come from a blue-collar background, not just myself, my mother's family [were] all welders actually.

AI represents a massive potential for positive advancements in manufacturing.

But it also represents potentially the nuclear bomb for work as we know it in the world," Moore said in an exclusive interview Monday with Fox News Digital.

Representing a state still closely tied to mining and manufacturing, Moore has taken his message to the Teamsters and other labor stakeholders, arguing that AI should become a "force-multiplier" for workers rather than simply replace them.

WATCH: AMERICANS WARN AI WILL TAKE JOBS DESPITE REASSURING LABOR DATA: ‘JUST WAIT’ Moore said he leans toward finding the "positives" in AI development and that, if the technology can complement blue-collar labor rather than replace it, it could be a game-changer for the U.S. economy and its workers.

"I think AI certainly has the ability to extend the longevity of a worker in a particular trade.

It can also make those jobs safer.

It can extend the timeperiod in which somebody can work without injury.

And it can also create better efficiencies, which then can also better paying jobs here in this country." I FEARED AI WOULD LEAVE MY COMMUNITY BEHIND.

NOW I SEE A PATH TO PROSPERITY "Or, it’s the nuclear weapon [against] work, it could potentially eliminate jobs as we know it and get rid of what is really critical, I think, to being a human being: which is human purpose, which work is certainly part of that and the dignity of work and contributing to civil society." Moore’s district includes major commercial arteries like Interstates 79 and 81 and the new Trans-Allegheny U.S.