WASHINGTON – Prominent critics of artificial intelligence warned that the industry’s plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this year’s midterm elections are aimed at blocking Congress from regulating a rapidly advancing technology that poses serious risks to society, including jobs, energy prices, and privacy, along with more existential dangers.
“The big money interests, the billionaires who control our economy and our political system, are going to do everything to elect people to give them a green light to go forward,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is planning to introduce legislation prohibiting the construction of data centers that power AI, said in an interview with HuffPost. “I happen to believe that Congress and the American people are totally unprepared for the transformational and radical impact it’s going to have on our society.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another leading advocate of regulating AI, said the industry is trying “to make sure that they can continue doing whatever they want.”
“It’s a problem,” she added.
AI companies have modeled their lobbying efforts after crypto-backed groups, another influential segment of the tech industry that invested heavily in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Crypto super PACs spent tens of millions of dollars, for example, on ads to block Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) from being elected to the Senate last year. They did the same to oust former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and elect his replacement, crypto-friendly GOP businessman Bernie Moreno, who now holds his seat.
