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A little over two years ago, OpenAI\u2019s founder Sam Altman stood in front of lawmakers at a congressional hearing and asked them for stronger regulations<\/a> on artificial intelligence. The technology was \u201crisky\u201d and \u201ccould cause significant harm to the world\u201d, Altman said, calling for the creation of a new regulatory agency to address AI safety.<\/p>\n Altman and the AI industry are promoting a very different message today. The AI they once framed as an existential threat to humanity is now key to maintaining American prosperity and hegemony. Regulations that were once a necessity are now criticized as a hindrance that will weaken the US and embolden its adversaries.<\/p>\n Whether or not the AI industry ever truly wanted government oversight is debatable, but what has become clear over the past year is that they are willing to spend exorbitant sums of money to make sure any regulation that does exist happens on their terms. There has been a surge in AI lobbying and political action committees from the industry, with a report last week from the Wall Street Journal<\/a> that Silicon Valley plans to pour $100m into a network of organizations opposing AI regulation ahead of next year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n One of the biggest efforts to sway candidates in favor of AI will be a Super Pac called Leading Our Future, which is backed by OpenAI<\/a> president Greg Brockman and venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz. The group is planning bipartisan spending on candidates and running digital candidates in key states for AI policy including New York, Illinois and California, according to the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is also forming its own Super Pac<\/a> targeted specifically at opposing AI regulation in its home state of California. The Meta California Pac will spend tens of millions on elections in the state, which is holding its governor\u2019s race in 2026.<\/p>\n The new Super Pacs are an escalation of the AI industry\u2019s already hefty spending to influence government policy on the technology. Big AI firms have ramped up their lobbying \u2013 OpenAI spent roughly $620,000 on lobbying<\/a> in the second quarter of this year alone \u2013 in an effort to push back against calls for regulation. OpenAI rival Anthropic meanwhile spent $910,000 on lobbying in Q2, Politico reported<\/a>, up from $150,000 during the same period last year.<\/p>\n The spending blitz comes as the benefits promised by AI companies have yet to fully materialize and the harms associated with the technology are increasingly clear. A recent study from MIT showed that 95% of companies they studied received no return on investment<\/a> from their generative AI programs, while another study this month from Stanford researchers found AI was severely hurting<\/a> young workers\u2019 job prospects. Meanwhile, the concern around AI\u2019s impact on mental health was back in the spotlight this past week after the parents of a teenager who died by suicide filed a lawsuit against OpenAI<\/a> blaming the company\u2019s chatbot for their son\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Despite the public safety, labor, and environmental concerns surrounding AI, the industry may not have to work too hard to find a sympathetic ear in Washington. The Trump administration, which already has extensive ties to the tech industry, has suggested that it is determined to become the world\u2019s dominant AI power at any cost.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t stop it. We can\u2019t stop it with politics,\u201d Trump said last month<\/a> in a speech about winning the AI race. \u201cWe can\u2019t stop it with foolish rules\u201d.<\/p>\n OpenAI faces its first wrongful death lawsuitThe parents of a teenager who died by suicide filed a lawsuit against OpenAI blaming the company\u2019s chatbot for their son\u2019s death. Photograph: Dado Ruvi\u0107\/Reuters<\/p>\n The parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine are suing OpenAI<\/a> in a wrongful death case after their son died by suicide. The lawsuit alleges that Raine talked extensively with ChatGPT about his suicidal ideations and even uploaded a picture of a noose, but the chatbot failed to deter the teenager or stop communicating with him.<\/p>\n The family alleges this is not an edge-case but an inherent flaw in the way the system was designed.<\/p>\n In a conversation with the Guardian, Jay Edelson, one of the attorneys representing the Raine family said that OpenAI\u2019s response was acknowledgment that the company knew GPT-4o, the version of ChatGPT Raine was using, was broken. The family\u2019s case hinges on the claim, based on previous media reporting, that OpenAI rushed the release of GPT-4o and sacrificed safety testing to meet that launch date. Without that safety testing, the company did not catch certain contradictions in the way the system was designed, the family\u2019s lawsuit claims. So instead of terminating the conversation with the teenager once he started talking about harming himself, GPT-4o provided an empathetic ear, at one point discouraging him from talking to his family about his pain.<\/p>\n The lawsuit is the first wrongful death case against OpenAI, which announced last week it would change the way its chatbot responds to users in mental distress. The company said in a statement to the New York Times<\/a> that it was \u201cdeeply saddened\u201d by Raine\u2019s death and suggested that ChatGPT\u2019s safeguards become less reliable over the course of long conversations.<\/p>\n Concerns over suicide prevention and harmful relationships with chatbots have existed for years, but the widespread adoption of the technology has intensified calls from watchdog groups for better safety guardrails. In another case from this year, a cognitively impaired 76-year-old man from New Jersey died after attempting to travel to New York City<\/a> to meet a Meta chatbot persona called \u201cBig sis Billie\u201d that had been flirtatiously communicating with him. The chatbot had repeatedly told the man that it was a real woman and encouraged the trip.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Read our coverage of the lawsuit here.<\/a><\/p>\n Elon Musk sues Apple and OpenAI claiming a conspiracyElon Musk attends a press conference at the White House on 30 May 2025. Photograph: Nathan Howard\/Reuters<\/p>\n