To regulate or not to regulate, that’s the question. At least it’s the one plaguing the AI industry. There have been two clear factions in response to that question, and they are both rapidly solidifying their place in American politics.
On one side, you have those who view most AI safety regulations as an obstacle to innovation. Pushing that narrative in Washington D.C. is “Leading the Future,” a super PAC backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and the AI search engine company Perplexity.
Leading the Future launched in August with a mission to spend more than $100 million to guarantee that pro-AI/anti-regulation candidates win in the 2026 midterm elections, with their first official target being New York state assembly member Alex Bores, who is running for Congress. Bores co-sponsored the RAISE Act, a state-level AI safety legislation that is still waiting for Governor Kathy Hochul’s sign-off.
Bores isn’t the only AI hawk up for a spot in Congress; there are many others, including California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who spearheaded a first-of-its-kind AI safety bill that was signed into law in October by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The super PAC also launched an advocacy arm called Build American AI, which announced a $10 million campaign on Monday to push for a pro-AI federal legislative framework that would override stricter state-level laws and proposals.
Now, a new group is forming in response to Leading the Future, according to a New York Times report from Tuesday.
According to the Times, AI safety activists, donors loosely tied to the effective altruism movement, and employees of all ranks at Anthropic have been talking for a while about how to counter Leading the Future.
A new network of super PACs led by Brad Carson, former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, is allegedly planning to raise roughly $50 million to back bipartisan pro-regulation candidates in the 2026 midterm elections.
Carson told the Times that the network wants to eventually match the $100 million raised by Leading The Future. The new network is so focused on fighting the Andreessen-backed super PAC that they have allegedly joked about calling themselves “z16a,” as in the backward spelling of Andreessen Horowitz’s nickname “a16z.”
While Anthropic has not yet committed to supporting any particular group, the report claims that some of the new advocacy group’s funding will likely come from Anthropic executives and employees, though not the corporation itself.
Carson told the Times that he has been speaking to wealthy donors across the industry, including from Anthropic and OpenAI, which is notable considering that OpenAI president Brockman is one of Leading the Future’s top backers.
Safety is central to the self-proclaimed mission of Anthropic. Co-founders Dario and Daniela Amodei are both former OpenAI employees, who left the ChatGPT-maker to create a more safety-focused AI company.
Years later, OpenAI is now on the receiving end of intense backlash and some legal trouble after accusations that the company ignored safety measures for its chatbots. Central to the backlash is the sycophancy problem of some ChatGPT models, which has allegedly led to serious and at times fatal mental health episodes in some users. Meanwhile, Anthropic has been evaluating its chatbots’ predilection toward sycophancy for years.
Anthropic executives have long been calling for the industry to be lightly regulated to ensure that vision for safe AI development. They were the only major early supporter of AI regulation in California, and the only AI giant to somewhat distance itself from the Trump administration while the rest of the industry forged really close ties to the White House.
Critics of Anthropic’s approach usually call it “doomerism,” and see the pleas for regulation as inauthentic efforts to make sure that the regulatory environment is inhospitable to new AI companies.
The AI industry is no stranger to lobbying, but its influence efforts and the size of its checks are significantly ramping up.
One of many points to take away from the outcome of the 2024 elections was that pouring unbelievable amounts of money to sway public opinion and influence democratic elections actually works pretty well. The crypto industry, through its leading super PAC (once again Andreessen Horowitz-backed) Fairshake, spent $135 million to ensure a pro-crypto sweep in local elections and to guarantee the election of the United States’ self-proclaimed “first pro-crypto president.” Since then, the crypto bros have been rewarded with favorable regulations and even Presidential pardons.
It looks like the AI industry on both sides of the schism took serious notes, and they are ready to get moving.
