In the context of the continued boom in artificial intelligence and an election year that may affect future artificial intelligence regulation, artificial intelligence lobbying activities at the federal level in the United States have intensified. The latest data from OpenSecrets, a non-profit organization that tracks and publishes metrics on campaign finance and lobbying, shows that the number of groups lobbying the federal government on artificial intelligence-related issues increased from 459 in 2023 to 556 in the first half of 2024 (January to July).
Meanwhile, top AI startups have also stepped up their lobbying efforts, OpenSecrets data shows.
ChatGPT developer OpenAI has significantly increased its lobbying spending, spending $800,000 in the first six months of 2024, compared with $260,000 for all of 2023. At the same time, the company's team of outside lobbyists has also increased from three consultants last year to about 15 in the first half of 2024.
In March, shortly before OpenAI welcomed former NSA Director Paul Nakasone to its board of directors, the startup hired former Republican Senator Norm Coleman as its spokesman on research and development issues. Other well-known law firms including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and DLA Piper have also registered lobbyists for OpenAI, according to OpenSecrets.
OpenAI has also beefed up its internal policy team, hiring Microsoft's former senior director of congressional affairs Chan Park in November to lead partnerships in the United States and Canada. According to the Financial Times, the number of employees in OpenAI’s global affairs department has more than quadrupled since last year to 35 people spread across eight countries.
Elsewhere, OpenAI rival Anthropic will spend $500,000 on lobbying in the coming months. Anthropic has spent $250,000 on its five lobbying teams so far in 2024, nearly as much as it spent on three lobbyists in all of 2023 ($280,000).
Anthropic hired two outside lobbying firms last January, former AWS lobbyist Stoney Burke of AquiaGroup and Jed Bhuta of Tower19. The company also hired an in-house lobbyist in early March.
Even smaller AI companies are spending tens of thousands of dollars on lobbying.
Cohere, which spent $700 million last year lobbying policymakers, increased its spending to $120,000 in the first half of this year, according to OpenSecrets data. Cohere mainly customizes generative artificial intelligence models for enterprise customers. Compared with OpenAI or Anthropic, its business scope is narrower.
It’s no accident that lobbyists are getting bigger retainers from AI vendors.
First, this is an election year—the major presidential candidates have made clear their differing positions on AI regulation.
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris said she shares President Joe Biden's view that artificial intelligence should be subject to some form of federal oversight. Former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump advocated repealing the White House’s artificial intelligence policy and deregulating it across the board.
The Commerce Department released a report this week that could signal the direction of the Harris administration. The report, issued by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, advocates the release of new generative AI models, especially "open weight" models such as Meta's Llama 3.1, but recommends that the government develop "new capabilities" to monitor the risks of such models.
The U.S. Congress has yet to pass overarching legislation on artificial intelligence, or even put forward a legal proposal as comprehensive as the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act. A vacuum in federal rulemaking has left states and local governments scrambling to fill the void; nearly 400 state-level AI laws have been proposed this year, according to lobbying group TechNet.
This week, OpenAI expressed support for several Senate bills that would create a federal AI rulemaking agency, provide federal scholarships for AI R&D, and establish AI education resources in college and K-12 settings. (OpenAI has multiple education customers).
As the nation awaits the results of the November election, OpenAI and other artificial intelligence vendors are facing potential antitrust cases from regulators including the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). According to CNBC, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking more information on Amazon’s recently announced partnership with artificial intelligence startup Adept, while both the Department of Justice and the FTC are said to be investigating Microsoft’s temporary hiring of Inflection employees. Microsoft gave up its observer seat on OpenAI's board of directors in July, a move likely to ease concerns from U.S. antitrust regulators because Microsoft is a major investor in the company.