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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

#61

Post by user- »

Aunche wrote: post #52
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.

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. This should be a basic fact. If those who spend a good portion of time being angry at lobbyists yet intelligent enough to make mid-six figures conflate bribery with lobbying, it should be no surprise the corporations ha…

Can you explain what you mean by

>some humanities or social science majors

this? Im sensing some meaning towards you calling out their degrees.

Your comment implies you have some deep civic understanding so can you expland on what your POV is? Im not american and would like to konw.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#63

Post by SoftTalker »

nozzlegear wrote: post #23
peter_stokes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for the first time ever, i got a reCaptcha that required me to scan a QR code? Thankfully when I refreshed the page, I got a new busclicking captcha

> I got a new busclicking captcha Busclickers are S-tier captchas IMO, always easy to identify. Motorcycles and bicycles, on the other hand, are maybe the worst – D-tier at best. /tangent

And they don't seem to be very particular. I just click a few boxes and usually get past it.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#64

Post by nozzlegear »

SoftTalker wrote: post #63
nozzlegear wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got a new busclicking captcha Busclickers are S-tier captchas IMO, always easy to identify. Motorcycles and bicycles, on the other hand, are maybe the worst – D-tier at best. /tangent

And they don't seem to be very particular. I just click a few boxes and usually get past it.

I used to make a game of seeing how few matches, or how many deliberate mismatches, I could get away with while still passing the captcha. It asks for 4 bus images? How about 3 bus images, or 2 bus images and a car?

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#65

Post by scottyah »

SirHackalot wrote: post #28
whatever1 wrote: post #17

Everyone should be lobbying. It is the golden era of lobbying with 100% success rates. Whether you are in AI or the lettuce industry.

It was always the era of lobbying, now you just shower the gold-obsessed king with tribute — crypto, ballroom funds, a private jet — in order to buy a presidential decree. Just lay gold and silver at the feet of the monarch and wait for your royal pardon or policy favor.

It was so funny when Apple gave Trump an actual gold bar

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#66

Post by smallmancontrov »

ben_w wrote: post #60
smallmancontrov wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." - Adam Smith

A curious choice of quote on a tech forum attached to a VC firm :P

You know what would be cool? A national startup accelerator!

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#68

Post by atlasunshrugged »

For technical minded US folks who read about this and are outraged and/or interested in how they can do more politically, I highly recommend checking out fellowship programs like TechCongress and Horizon which place technical experts in Congress for a year (disclosure, I'm an alum) and have become critical sources of expertise in a world dominated by nontechnical folks. TechCongress applications for next year closed, but I believe Horizon's are still open.

https://techcongress.io/ https://horizonpublicservice.org/

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#69

Post by alkr-g234 »

01284a7e wrote: post #5
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's so cheap that normal people could band together and re-buy democracy. It's the banding together part that is hard.

And you cannot offer the Kushner family OpenAI shares. The 4 million is just the surface.

Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying

#70

Post by throwaw12 »

Aunche wrote: post #52
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.

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. This should be a basic fact. If those who spend a good portion of time being angry at lobbyists yet intelligent enough to make mid-six figures conflate bribery with lobbying, it should be no surprise the corporations ha…

> 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

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