AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying • Hacker News Board

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#151

Post by triceratops » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

philipallstar wrote: post #150

triceratops wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sorry, I've no idea what either of those sentences are doing.

I thought it was obvious but I'll spell it out. Businesses do what's good for the business. Often, happily, that turns out to be to the benefit of consumers. But that is never the objective. Businesses take anti-consumer decisions every day with no qualms when it serves them.

"Pro business is pro business" was my reply to your naive "Pro business is pro consumer" declaration of faith.

My second sentence clarified that my first sentence carried no judgement of businesses. That's just their nature, it's what they do.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#152

Post by 6510 » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

andrewla wrote: post #131

testing22321 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly because those things are directly illegal Ah yes, said politician will just host a $100,000 a head luncheon so nobody is “bribing” them. That would be dirty.

Yes, you're right, they could just do this, and then spend the rest of their term thrown out of Congress and rotting in prison. That is, they can hold such a lunch, but they can't pocket the money personally or even have the money contributed towards their campaign. Pocketing the money personally is just bribery, having it contribute to their campaign would violate the contribution limits (typically ~$10,000 per elec…

> A federal jury convicted Menendez on 16 felony counts. These included bribery, extortion, conspiracy, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and acting as a foreign agent.

Seems you have to go all out before the comprendes?

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#153

Post by manvshin » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

Curious whether anyone's tracked how this compares to lobbying spend from earlier tech waves at a similar stage — e.g. crypto/fintech circa 2018-2019, or telecom in the 90s. Is $2-3M actually low for an industry this size, or is AI lobbying still ramping toward where crypto ended up?

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#154

Post by mainstreetlobby » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

TheTaytay wrote: post #133

falcor84 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making this very dichotomous, but I'm not convinced. Why shouldn't there be a way to bring issues to the parliament's attention without private money? For example, while flawed, the EU's Citizens' Initiative approach seems to be doing some good work bringing attention to issues that are in the public interest. I'd encourage us to look more extensively into these sort of open initiatives.

Fair point, and I concede I oversimplified. I certainly don’t think that this should be the only way to talk to a lawmaker! I should be able to schedule time to go meet with my representatives or his/her people. I should also be able to pay someone to do so on my behalf. I’m not familiar with the Citizen’s Initiative approach! I’ll look into it, and agree we should have more organized and official ways of doing it. I…

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