In Washington herrscht ein KI-Lobbying-Wahnsinn. Big Tech dominiert

„I would still say that civil society—and I’m including academia in this, all sorts of different people—would be outspent by big tech by five to one, ten to one.”

„While they have publicly been supportive of AI regulation, in closed-door conversations with officials they tend to push for light-touch and voluntary rules, say Congressional staffers and advocates.“

“Anytime you want to make a tech company do something mandatory, they’re gonna push back on it,” said one Congressional staffer.

In 2023, Amazon, Meta, Google parent company Alphabet, and Microsoft each spent more than $10 million on lobbying, according to data provided by OpenSecrets. The Information Technology Industry Council, a trade association, spent $2.7 million on lobbying. In comparison, civil society group the Mozilla Foundation spent $120,000 and AI safety nonprofit the Center for AI Safety Action Fund spent $80,000.

Given that the definition of lobbying only includes speaking with staffers about specific laws, these figures likely underestimate the amounts of money that tech companies are spending to influence lawmakers.

Multiple advocates and Hill sources suggested that the consistently large amounts spent by the big technology companies has allowed them to build up a sophisticated lobbying apparatus that has so far outgunned the efforts of other organizations.

Tech companies are able to spend more and thus pay for more experienced lobbyists, who better understand the technical details of their brief better and have a more extensive network on the Hill, the staffer said.”

„Others, however, say that while companies do sometimes try to promote their own interests at the expense of the public interest, most lobbying helps to produce sensible legislation. ‚Most of the companies, when they engage, they’re trying to put their best foot forward in terms of making sure that we’re bolstering U.S. national security or bolstering U.S. economic competitiveness,‘ says Kaushik. ‚At the same time, obviously, the bottom line is important.'“

So is it „sometimes“ that they try to promote their own interests at the expense of public interest or is „the bottom line“ important? From empirical observation and mass layoffs in the tech sector the last few years, a corporation’s only interest has always been their bottom line. So yeah, the biggest tech companies with the most spending power lobbying politicians doesn’t seem all that great.