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AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

ft.com

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Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#91

Post by mr_toad »

throwaw12 wrote: post #83
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are interested in learning about topics from credible people that impact businesses and voters, If the only motivation you can ascribe is making money or relection, it is circular. Wealthy people spend money to become politicians.

> They are interested in learning about topics from credible people Honestly, you surprised me with this statement alone. interested in learning? do you think Trump wants to learn anything from AIPAC? or Pharma lobby or Military Industrial complex? What do politicans want to learn from Military Industrial complex or AIPAC lobby for example? What's there, that politicians don't know already?

> What's there, that politicians don't know already?

They need to be ‘reminded’ of the issues that ‘campaign contributions’ are contingent upon.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#92

Post by ratelimitsteve »

rayiner wrote: post #73
simonw wrote: post #4

> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.

It seems like the empirical fact that lobbying is cheap is at odds with your apparent assumptions about the value companies gain from lobbying. Does that fact make you rethink your notion of what lobbying actually entails? Lobbying is cheap because it’s just making powerpoint presentations to Congressional staffers. It’s helping them identify where the pre-existing political fault lines are and arming them with ammo…

If it's just making powerpoint presentations why do AI companies whose whole raison d'etre is that they can make these powerpoints in seconds for pennies spend millions on lobbying instead? Lobbying is cheap because it identifies the relatively small number of leverage points it takes to send society down one track instead of another and targets the spending there. Buy the right guy dinner and you get what you want just the same as if you'd spent billions on ads to convince millions of people to vote for the guy who's gonna do what you want.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#93

Post by xhevahir »

rayiner wrote: post #73
simonw wrote: post #4

> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.

It seems like the empirical fact that lobbying is cheap is at odds with your apparent assumptions about the value companies gain from lobbying. Does that fact make you rethink your notion of what lobbying actually entails? Lobbying is cheap because it’s just making powerpoint presentations to Congressional staffers. It’s helping them identify where the pre-existing political fault lines are and arming them with ammo…

> Lobbying is cheap because it’s just making powerpoint presentations to Congressional staffers.

No. It is not. For starters, ask anybody who works at a DC restaurant or sporting venue.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#94

Post by triceratops »

philipallstar wrote: post #81
runarberg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not surprise me that the cost of lobbying rises exponentially as the policy moves left on the political spectrum. That pro-business, pro-austerity, neo-liberal policy is orders of magnitude cheaper to lobby for, then pro-worker, pro-democracy, pro-consumer policy.

Pro business is pro consumer.

Pro business is pro business. That's reality, not a value judgement.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#96

Post by qwytw »

andrewla wrote: post #89
throwaw12 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lobbying expenditures are given to lobbyists not politicians. You're primarily paying for the salary of some humanities or social science majors and their travel expenses, which isn't that much money. I don't think these are the only expenses, why should politician listen to them if lobbyists are not promising them support in next elections in the form of marketing, payments for expenses and so on

> why should politician listen to them if lobbyists are not promising them support in next elections in the form of marketing, payments for expenses and so on Mostly because those things are directly illegal. Lobbying organizations (and PACs and SuperPACs etc.) are very limited in what they can provide either as direct monetary contributions or in-kind gifts to a candidate. The restrictions here are basically the sam…

Well a funding a PAC that supports a specific candidate/party who gets elected because of that effectively accomplishes the same thing. Of course the salary the company "buys" for them isn't exactly in the same magnitude as a direct bribe could potentially be (on the upper end at least).

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#97

Post by gruez »

simonw wrote: post #4

> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.

Obligatory: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in...

>Add up all US spending on candidates, PACs, lobbying, think tanks, and advocacy organizations – liberal and conservative combined – and we’re still $2 billion short of what we spend on almonds each year.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#98

Post by qwytw »

shevy-java wrote: post #33
simonw wrote: post #4

> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.

That's most definitely not the real sum. People need to look at financial kick backs. There is a certain guy here in central Europe who left politics quite recently, but suddenly has 400 million euros wealth - out of nowhere. And nobody questions how he got that ... The corruption happens not only via direct lobbyism. One has to look at the whole corruption bribe bubble here.

Funding their reelection, industry "connections" making it easy for you or your relatives to get jobs or make profitable investments, opportunities to get speaking fees after you leave office and similar perfectly legal things are probably much more common than cash bribes.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#99

Post by triceratops »

rayiner wrote: post #73
simonw wrote: post #4

> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.

It seems like the empirical fact that lobbying is cheap is at odds with your apparent assumptions about the value companies gain from lobbying. Does that fact make you rethink your notion of what lobbying actually entails? Lobbying is cheap because it’s just making powerpoint presentations to Congressional staffers. It’s helping them identify where the pre-existing political fault lines are and arming them with ammo…

> just making powerpoint presentations to Congressional staffers

And how does one get the access to do that?

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#100

Post by qwytw »

kylecazar wrote: post #11
paytonjjones wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, couldn't this be seen as evidence on favor of the "corporate narrative" on lobbying? Namely, that the purpose of lobbying is to ensure politicians have instant and easy access to high-quality, insider information relevant to their decision-making on corporate issues (as opposed to simply being bribed)? I remember my poli sci teacher on college tried very hard to convince the class of this (with little…

I never understood that narrative either. You won't get high quality information from someone that is paying you for influence. You will get a lopsided/biased perspective, and the unwritten expectation is you will use it or contributions will cease. Congress can and does ask companies for their expertise/stance on any given issue or policy, for free. They want to be involved for the same reason they lobby.

It's up to the congressman to weight all evidence and data available and come to well informed conclusion. If they are incapable or unwilling to do that that's a different issue.

> Congress can and does ask companies for their expertise/stance

They are inherently incapable of identify all these companies or measure the impact of their policies on their own, though (which is perfectly understandable, well I guess these days they can use an LLM to make this easier... /s)

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