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Guardrails Alliance has already raised $5 million and yesterday launched its first ad buys for New York state Rep. Alex Bores, who is running to replace longtime Rep. Jerry Nadler.
Artificial intelligence (AI) oligarchs are investing significant funds to prevent New York state Assemblymember Alex Bores from winning his congressional campaign in NY-12. Bores, who previously worked at Palantir and championed the nation's most robust AI safety legislation, has become a target for the industry's powerful interests. In response to this aggressive spending, a new progressive super PAC, Guardrails Alliance, has emerged, raising $5 million and initiating its first ad campaign with $250,000. This PAC is supported by a coalition of progressive organizations including the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Movement Voter Project, UltraViolet Action, and the Working Families Party (WFP), alongside individual tech workers. The strategy of Guardrails Alliance is not to directly compete with the AI industry's spending volume but to turn its financial influence into a liability by educating the public. Adam Green, a founding board member of Guardrails Action, an associated lobbying group, metaphorically describes this approach as "the torpedo blowing up the Death Star." This tactic leverages widespread public skepticism towards AI, with recent Pew Research polls indicating that a significant portion of the population (40%) anticipates negative societal impacts from AI, and nearly 60% distrusting companies to develop the technology safely. Influential figures like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, who are also notable donors to the Trump administration, are channelizing millions through groups like "Leading the Future" to oppose candidates such as Bores. While some wealthy AI figures, including Anthropic and its investor Chris Larsen (contributing over $10 million to pro-Bores groups), have also provided support, suggesting an internal industry debate on regulation, Green asserts that Guardrails Alliance offers a more credible voice to critique the industry's self-serving agenda. The PAC plans to identify and back more candidates advocating for AI regulation and aims to expose the financial activities and broader objectives of groups like Leading the Future, thereby converting their spending into public opposition, akin to how Elon Musk's political spending galvanized voters against his preferred candidate in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
Alex Bores’s career trajectory is profoundly shaped by his principled departure from Palantir during the first Trump administration. He resigned from his role, where he had spent five years (2014-2019) as a data scientist and later as the lead for federal government contracts (including with the Departments of Justice and Veterans Affairs), due to his inability to condone the company's collaboration with the Trump administration, specifically its activities related to immigrant deportations, despite not being directly involved in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract. This intimate experience within the tech sector provided Bores with a deep understanding of artificial intelligence, which he subsequently leveraged in public service to craft meaningful legislation. His most significant legislative achievement is the Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act in New York. This pioneering law, signed by Governor Kathy Hochul despite initial attempts by tech interests to dilute it, is the first of its kind in the nation. It mandates that large AI developers publicly disclose their safety protocols and report any incidents to the state within 72 hours of discovery. Furthermore, it established an oversight office within the state’s Department of Financial Services, tasked with assessing frontier developers and ensuring greater transparency. The RAISE Act surpasses California's earlier Senate Bill 53 by authorizing the New York Attorney General to pursue civil actions against non-compliant developers, with penalties reaching up to $1 million for the first violation and $3 million for subsequent infractions. Bores emphasized that this legislation also creates a framework for future disclosure requirements and regulatory measures. He proudly stated that "In New York, we defeated last-ditch attempts from AI oligarchs to wipe out this bill and, by doing so, raised the floor for what AI safety legislation can look like." This law remains effective even in the face of an executive order from the Trump administration aimed at preventing state-level AI regulation. This robust legislative stance and Bores's status as a former insider turned regulator are precisely why powerful AI executives perceive him as a threat, deploying substantial resources to ensure his political defeat. Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of Guardrails Alliance, identifies Bores as a "defector" whom the industry is actively trying to neutralize to discourage other tech professionals from advocating for similar regulatory frameworks.