AI companies have poured more than $20 million into the New York Democratic primary that could shape what artificial intelligence policies the federal government ultimately adopts. The race for the Manhattan Congressional District is between state lawmaker and AI safety advocate Alex Boales, fellow Congressman Mika Lasher, and John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg.
Two major super PACs affiliated with AI companies are facing off in New York’s 12th Congressional District. This is the only parliamentary election so far involving both groups.
Leading the Future, whose backers include venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, and AI software company Perplexity, spent $8 million to oppose Boas, who was the driving force behind state legislation requiring safety and security regulations for powerful AI models.
Opposing this spending is Public First Action, which received $20 million from Anthropic. The group supported Mr. Boas to the tune of $11 million, according to Federal Election Commission data reviewed by CNBC on Monday.
Public First Action is a division of Americans for Responsible Innovation, an AI safety group. The organization’s president, Brad Carson, said that while the organization does not disclose its donors, it has received support from employees of major AI companies, who he described as “middle-level people who are very afraid of what’s going on with technology.”
Big spending in one House race has become a proxy war over the future of AI regulation in the U.S. and how much more of a heavy hand the government should take as the industry grows and AI gains a broader foothold in society.
Leading the Future supports lighter guardrails around the burgeoning AI industry than Public First Action.
Josh Vlasto, co-leader of Leading the Future, said in a statement to CNBC that the PAC “supports the passage of a national regulatory framework for AI that creates jobs for American workers, helps America compete with China, and includes strong guardrails to keep children, users, and communities safe.”
When PAC was founded in August, it said it would “oppose policies that stifle innovation and make it difficult for China to gain global advantage in AI or bring the benefits of AI to the world.”
Public First Action, on the other hand, advocates for tighter limits not only on the results of AI models, but also on how they are created.
“We need to build safety into AI models,” Carson said. “Restricting output long after the aforementioned problems have occurred does little justice for those harmed by AI.”
This is consistent with Boas’s view that while AI can be a positive development, there must be limits.
“Regulations are not going to be the reason we win or lose this race with China,” Boas, an engineer and computer scientist who previously worked at Palantir, told CNBC while campaigning outside a subway station on Monday. “We can invest in AI that helps doctors diagnose diseases without incentivizing AI that helps providers deny claims. We can have the best of both worlds.”
Leading the Future and Public First Action are the two largest AI PACs in the midterm elections so far, but they are not the only AI groups pouring money into campaigns. There are several smaller PACs, many with ties to AI companies and Silicon Valley, that are on the “pro-regulation” side.
Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen donated $3 million to Boaz’s support through the not-so-subtly named PAC You Can Push Back.
Anthropic’s Dan Ziegler is a major donor to another superpac, Dream New York City, which ran an ad saying Boas would “take on Trump’s billionaire allies.” President Donald Trump signed an executive order in early June requiring AI companies to voluntarily provide models to the federal government to evaluate their capabilities before full release.
Another PAC, Guardrails Alliance, has spent only about $258,000 on the race, but aims to give a voice to OpenAI employees concerned about political spending by some of the company’s executives.
The district is heavily Democratic, making it almost certain that the winner of the primary will be sworn into Congress next year. Mr. Boales is one of eight candidates vying for the seat. Recent polls have him and Rusher tied, and Schlossberg is also a strong candidate. George Conway, a lawyer who is married to former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, is also running.
Even if Boaz loses, it may not be a complete victory for a less regulated audience. Mr. Lasher may not have been able to lead New York’s AI regulation bill like Mr. Boas, but he did vote to approve the bill in the state Legislature, and his website says the country “cannot rely on Big Tech to regulate it.”
