The increasingly powerful AI lobby poured millions of dollars into a campaign against a congressional candidate running in the Democratic primaries in New York. On Tuesday, they got what they paid for. Outside groups spent more than $40 million on the race to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat in the 12th congressional district in Manhattan. Among the eight candidates running, most of that money was spent on assemblymember Alex Bores, a divisive figure for Silicon Valley who has become the poster child for tougher AI regulation. Bores lost the Democratic primary to fellow assemblymember Micah Lasher, with whom it seemed like he was in a head-to-head race in prior polls. Bores ran on the platform of keeping big tech accountable by gunning for federal-level AI regulation, including through an AI Dividend program that would pay Americans who fall victim to AI-driven job displacement. What first put him on the tech industry’s radar was the RAISE Act, a landmark AI safety bill he sponsored in the New York State Assembly that would require leading AI companies to develop, publish, and adhere to formal safety protocols.
Shortly after he announced his candidacy, Bores found himself at the center of attacks from Leading the Future, a super PAC backed by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and AI search engine company Perplexity. Leading the Future spent $8 million to make sure Bores did not win the primaries.
