OpenAI and Anthropic are Buying Washington: The AI Lobbying Bonanza
It turns out OpenAI, Anthropic, and the usual suspects are throwing billions at the government to "influence" how AI grows. It’s not science anymore, it’s a shopping spree for policy, and you’re just watching the receipt roll out.
The days of tech firms playing it cool in a garage are long gone, replaced by deep-pocketed suits knocking on doors in D.C. OpenAI and Anthropic have surged their lobbying spending by millions, treating federal policy like a subscription service they can just pay to customize. While Anthropic claims their "protection" measures for models like Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are top-notch, the government seems to think otherwise, forcing them to jump through regulatory hoops that are magically cleared once enough checks are signed.
The hunger for influence extends beyond just software; the real estate war for data centers is heating up. Because you can’t run an "intelligence" without a place to put the servers, these giants are pouring money into lobbying to bypass construction restrictions that are currently slowing down their massive infrastructure build-outs. Even the release of GPT-5.6 was hit with a bureaucratic speed bump, with the White House effectively deciding which elite club members get to play with the latest toys first.
It’s almost touching how Google, Microsoft, AMD, and Nvidia suddenly care so much about "responsible AI" while their lobbyists are busy drafting the very rules they pretend to follow. The facade of innovation is being perfectly framed by the stark reality of raw, unadulterated rent-seeking.
Source: Financial Times
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