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AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

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Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#111

Post by atlasunshrugged »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #86
dboreham wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered: is this actually wanted? I ask because I live in a low population state where it's fairly easy to make contact with politicians' offices and there have been various cases over the years where I've noticed things occurring that seem off from a technical perspective, and have offered to help. Nobody ever seemed interested, which led me to believe their incentives lie somewhere other than "getting…

I did this in Oregon earlier this year for legislation that sat at the intersection of tech and surveillance. I am currently a registered lobbyist as a consequence of those efforts (for which I have been paid $0). In my experience, yes, it is actually wanted. But, it's not enough to just offer to help. Legislative processes are very very human -- i.e., you have to spend time in person, meeting people, getting to know…

Yes, I would echo that -- it's not something that I think is helpful to just drop into and offer specific technical expertise, but it is very much wanted if you're willing to build longer term relationships to understand the politics, office, and interests that all come wrapped up in a bill and the legislative process

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#112

Post by undersuit »

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 about Crypto lobbying. What do you think switched Trump's position on cryptocurrencies, did he learn you can scam people legally?

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#113

Post by williamcotton »

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.

Tangentially,

> "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."

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

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#114

Post by throwaw12 »

undersuit wrote: post #112
throwaw12 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 about Crypto lobbying. What do you think switched Trump's position on cryptocurrencies, did he learn you can scam people legally?

You are right, my apologies. Indeed he learned something from them

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#115

Post by pstuart »

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.

My understanding is that you can buy a US Senator for ~ $50K cash in pocket, but with inflation maybe that's gone up too.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#116

Post by rayiner »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #92
rayiner wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

> 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?

Because you need meat puppets to identify what arguments are going to be compelling to which politicians, and go into an office and spoon feed it to the staffers.

> 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.

If that were true, then the price of doing that would get bid up. It's extremely rare that you have an issue where there's not people with deep pockets on both sides of the issue.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#117

Post by throwaw12 »

Aunche wrote: post #106
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

It's not as if being elected is the end all and be all to being a politician. Politicians have a vague idea of how they want to shape society, but they can't be experts in completely unrelated subjects of healthcare, military, AI infrastructure etc. A good lobbyist will help a politician achieve these goals in the field of their expertise (or at least try to convince the politician that they're helping).

Why lobbyist can't just present their ideas publicly, like do a public free lessons to politicians and anyone who wants to attend, if they're so eager to teach politicians?

Let them publicly say whatever they're preaching to politicians, and instead of 'funding' politicians directly, let them just teach everyone all at once.

I would love to hear what AIPAC teaches politicians

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#118

Post by smallmancontrov »

carlosjobim wrote: post #107
CSSer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it’s trivial to form one! If you look up the documentation necessary you may not believe your eyes.

Why should it be hard? It's something which should be completely unregulated in a free country.

Letting mega-billionaires spend mega-millions to buy the conversation around elections isn't my definition of freedom.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#119

Post by marcosdumay »

TheTaytay wrote: post #104

Lots of pitchforks in these comments. If you had read that the EFF was meeting with lawmakers in the US to convince them that there was no secure way to allow the government to break e2e encryption, or had read that academics were banding together to ask the government not to make open weight LLMs illegal, what would your reaction be? What if told you that those organizations had actually paid a consultant to help th…

Those companies aren't spending millions an year to "paying a professional to talk to lawmakers".

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#120

Post by carlosjobim »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #118
carlosjobim wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should it be hard? It's something which should be completely unregulated in a free country.

Letting mega-billionaires spend mega-millions to buy the conversation around elections isn't my definition of freedom.

Which people do you allow to work together for their political goals then, oh grand hacker?

Do you understand the basics of a free society, which include freedom of association? You don't have much of a democracy left if you remove that.

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