AI firms pumped up their lobbying outlay to the U.S. federal government in 2024 in response to murkiness in regulatory rules. According to OpenSecrets, 648 companies embarked on AI lobbying last year, approximately a 141% increase from the prior year.
Major industries such as Microsoft endorsed acts like the CREATE AI Act designed for the progression of U.S.-developed AI systems. Renowned AI organizations like OpenAI rallied behind acts to establish a separate AI research unit within the federal government.
Notably, AI laboratories beefed up their lobbying spend in 2024 more than the preceding year, data reveals. OpenAI hiked its lobbying spend to $1.76 million last year from a mere $260,000 the previous year. Similarly, Anthropic, a competitor of OpenAI, doubled its spend from $280,000 to $720,000 last year. Cohere, an enterprise-centered startup, escalated its spending to $230,000 in 2024, up from $70,000 in 2023.
AI lab OpenAI and Anthropic made significant hires in the past year to govern their policy outreach. Anthropic employed its first in-house lobbyist while OpenAI enlisted political veteran Chris Lehane as its VP of policy.
In 2024, the combined lobbying budget of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere reached $2.71 million– over four times their combined spend in 2023, a mere $610,000. On the contrary, this figure pales when compared to the total tech industry outlay on lobbying during the same period–a whopping $61.5 million.
2024 was indeed a tumultuous period for domestic AI policymaking with over 90 AI-related legislative pieces considered alone in the first half, and over 700 proposed laws at the state level, per the Brennan Center. However, none achieved the comprehensive regulation as seen in international frameworks like the EU’s AI act.
Presidential intentions towards AI regulatory landscape remained unclear, with Trump indicating a drive towards deregulation of the industry supporting U.S.’s supremacy in AI. Within his initial days in office, Trump revoked an order by Biden to minimize potential AI-induced risks, cater to consumer and worker safety, and maintain national security.
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