The AI influence network's power players

How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington

A sprawling network spread across Congress, federal agencies and think tanks is pushing policymakers to put AI apocalypse at the top of the agenda — potentially boxing out other worries and benefiting top AI companies with ties to the network.

The Map is Eating the Territory: The Political Economy of AI

It's all driven by who gets what

A Dark-Money Campaign Is Paying Influencers to Frame Chinese AI as a Threat

Build American AI, a nonprofit linked to a super PAC bankrolled by executives at OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz, is funding a campaign to spread pro-AI messaging and stoke fears about China.

Key Congress staffers in AI debate are funded by tech giants like Google and Microsoft

Big tech companies are funneling money through a science nonprofit to help pay the salaries of AI staffers in Congress — and it’s just one example of the increasing influence outside-funded fellows are exerting on tech policy in Washington.

Your Online Public Engagement is Under Attack from AI

In Los Angeles and elsewhere, AI agents are diluting communities' voices and influencing how decision-makers vote.

Meredith Whittaker on Twitter / X

Now that even Goldman, Sequoia, and other major investors are calling it, it's good to remember that the shakiness of the AI market, and the mismatch between capex and ROI, has been clear for a long time to those of us who look closely at the political economy of AI. https://t.co/dLLNAcW5Sn— Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) July 30, 2024

Study maps how ‘Big AI’ influences AI laws and oversight — Centre for Technomoral Futures

AI companies influence policy and regulation using similar techniques to Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and Big Oil, according to a new study by colleagues at University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, TU Delft and Carnegie Mellon University.

3: Consulting the Record: AI Consistently Fails the Public - AI Now Institute

Amid the excitement over AI’s (speculative, hypothetical) potential, we have lost sight of the sobering reality of its present and recent past. AI is already intermediating critical social infrastructures, materially reshaping our institutions in ways that ratchet up inequality and concentrate power in the hands of the already powerful. It is consistently deployed in ways […]

The real AI economy is being built by ordinary people

Far from Silicon Valley pitch decks, workers across Asia and Africa are bypassing tech industry hype to quietly rewire their daily jobs — one prompt, workflow, and local problem at a time.

The Biggest Pro-AI Super PAC Network Has Poured Millions Into Nevada Shell Companies

Backed by Silicon Valley titans, Leading the Future has raised huge sums to promote pro-AI candidates on both side of the aisle.

AI FOR EPISTEMICS & COORDINATION

Civilization and technology have radically improved the human condition. Nonetheless, the world sometimes goes in directions which essentially nobody would prefer — e.g., nuclear arms races, unexpected financial crashes, predatory marketing, or ubiquitous political misinformation.

Characterizing Agentic Flooding of Government Services

AI agents are making it easier for the public to interact with government, such as by helping them apply for benefits, understand complex policies, and make their opinions heard. Although...

From Chile to the Philippines, meet the people pushing back on AI

Individuals and communities are resisting the demands and practices of Big Tech's AI infrastructure — such as data centers and digital labor — due to their environmental and social costs.

Politicians are being sold AI-powered 'digital fighters'

A new app gets around bot bans by recruiting real people to post political messages generated by AI.