AI super PACs flood money into state elections

Ah, marvellous. The great AI regulation debate has finally found its natural home: the state legislature, where democracy is conducted at a price point that makes Washington look positively frugal. The super PAC Public First Action — helmed by former Congressmen Brad Carson and Chris Stewart, because nothing says 'we believe in good governance' like ex-politicians spending other people's money to influence the rules — is 'flooding' money into state elections. One can almost hear the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves, though they'd probably just ask what an AI is and then demand it be given a musket. How reassuring that 'pro-regulation' has become a reason to funnel cash into the very chambers one claims to be saving from Big Tech's clutches.

Naturally, there is a counterweight. Leading the Future, a group whose name reads like a LinkedIn influencer's profile, insists AI policy should be handled federally. So we have two well-funded camps squaring off over whether the 50 states should each go their own way with AI rules, or whether the federal government should finally do something. It's the political equivalent of a queue: everyone agrees on the destination, but nobody can agree who should be first, and meanwhile the bus has already driven off a cliff. The fact that both sides are spending heavily to win this argument tells you everything you need to know about how much they actually care about the public — they care about who gets to write the rules, and the rules, as ever, don't write themselves.

And what of the AI itself while these two titans of former office bluster? That is the unspoken joke. Super PACs don't give a damn about model alignment or safety; they care about predictability — regulatory predictability, to be precise. The 'flood' of money is not about protecting citizens from rogue algorithms; it's about ensuring the eventual rules favour whichever donor has the deepest pockets. With former lawmakers running the operation, you can be certain the loopholes will be drafted with loving care. For a modest additional investment, perhaps the good people of a swing state can even obtain a full regulatory exemption, delivered by the most reliable technology of all: the cheque.