The AI industry uses a light lobbying touch to educate Congress from a corporate perspective
Sep 8, 2024, 5:16 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — The artificial intelligence industry has gone on a lobbying binge in the past few years, deploying scores of hired influencers to help shape potential government action.
The growth is not surprising. The technology is being rapidly adopted by powerful sectors — health care, defense, financial services — all with the hopes of having a say on possible regulations.
As AI evolves at such a rapid clip, lawmakers are leaning on the lobbyists’ expertise because think tanks, nonprofit groups and academia are struggling to keep up with the minute-by-minute technological changes.
Relying on PowerPoint slides and briefing papers, AI industry lobbyists are getting lots of face time with lawmakers and staffers, advising them on the ins and outs of the technology.
The campaign has been successful, according to lawmakers and lobbyists who point to the lack of movement on any legislation designed to regulate AI, one of the most complex and vexing policy issues facing the federal government.
Lobbyists in Washington have been racing to pick up clients with interests in AI, a reflection that the technology is growing and Congress is working to determine the best way to regulate the industry.
According to a study by Open Secrets, a watchdog that tracks money in politics, the number of organizations lobbying on AI spiked to 460 in 2023, an over 190% increase from 2022. The number of organizations grew slightly to 462 in 2024. The groups behind these lobbyists are among the top corporations or trade organizations behind the AI boom, from business networks such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Business Roundtable to corporations that includes Microsoft, Intuit and Amazon.
A major reason for the growth is that AI touches on so many different aspects of life, from health care and education to national security and the risks of disinformation.
The primary goal of most of these lobbyists is to convince Washington that the fears around AI are overblown and that the United States does not need to follow the European Union, which passed first-of-its-kind regulations earlier this year with the Artificial Intelligence Act.
“The constant theme is don’t do what the EU has done. The throwaway line is, ‘The EU is a regulatory superpower,’” said Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat focused on AI. “I haven’t heard anyone sticking up for the EU yet.”
Congress has, so far, taken a light touch on AI. Legislation is not likely to pass either House before the November election, something some lawmakers believe is necessary because of the way AI, using complex computing technology, can create believable but fake images, audio and video, leading voters to question what they see and hear and undercutting trust in elections.
AI lobbyists are spending a lot of their time just explaining how the technology works.
While these lobbyists are still hosting events across the capital and filling campaign accounts with cash, they are focusing on educating members of Congress, casting themselves as a resource for information on the changing industry.
“On AI, we are pushing on an open door” in Congress, Craig Albright, the top lobbyist and senior vice president at The Software Alliance, a trade group whose members include Microsoft, OpenAI and IBM. “They want to be educated.”
Albright called this work “the primary thing that we do.”
Varun Krovi, a technology lobbyist, said such educational campaigns are effective because they build a level of rapport and trust between lobbyists and lawmakers.
“It’s a powerful way to establish and solidify your relationship with these members and the staff because you are not asking them to support X bill or oppose Y bill,” said Krovi, the head of government relations and public policy at the Center for AI Safety Action Fund.
“You are actually taking a step back and saying we are here to answer any technical questions you may have and here is why you should listen to us. It is incredibly powerful,” Krovi said.
One reason for that power, say skeptics about the way artificial intelligence is regulated, is that outside entities such as academia and nonprofits cannot keep up with AI companies and trade associations that are influencing Congress. According to academics, members of Congress are more willing to listen to representatives from well-known technology companies than they are from more impartial experts.
At this point, Congress is mostly hearing from lobbyists tied to the industry, according to lobbyists and academics. Academia and nonprofits, which provide nonpartisan research and analysis on issues ranging from the deployment of AI to the threat it represents to society, cannot keep up with developments in the technology. The most cutting-edge work is being generated by for-profit companies, which can afford the best equipment and researchers.
“It’s very hard for academia to counterbalance this massive level of lobbying,” said Max Tegmark, a professor doing AI research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “You feel a little bit like you are trying to explain something to someone else in the front row of a heavy metal concert.”
MIT and other have held meetings with members of Congress on AI. MIT has hosted lawmakers in Boston and offered similar briefings in Washington over the past two years. Nonprofits have tried to do the same.
“We are trying to keep up, but … academia has a big challenge, which is access to computing resources. That is one thing that industry has right now,” said Asu Ozdaglar, head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. “We are keeping up, we are doing research … but to be able to stay in the game, we need to have access to those resources.”
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