Democrats preparing to take control of the House and Senate are committing to make AI regulation and investigations of companies a key priority, per The Hill. Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement that Congress should "investigate how these companies are putting the jobs, freedom, and lives of Americans at risk," according to the San Francisco Standard. Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff said in his victory speech Tuesday night that his job will be to bring "Big Tech to heel," The Atlantic reported. He told supporters that Silicon Valley executives build bunkers for themselves while warning that their AI could cause human extinction.
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Candidates backed by tech billionaires and AI industry political groups mostly lost on Tuesday, the San Francisco Standard reported. Elon Musk put more than $200 million against Democrat James Talarico, who beat Republican Ken Paxton for a Texas Senate seat. Pro-AI groups American Mission and Building the Future spent $4.8 million backing Republican Darline Graham, who lost to Democrat Annie Andrews in South Carolina, per TechCrunch. Think Big, the Democratic arm of Leading the Future, backed Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who won reelection.
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OpenAI said it will not require public officials to sign nondisclosure agreements at future compute campuses it owns and operates, keeping narrow protections for security information and trade secrets, and will pay the full cost of the electricity and grid equipment serving those sites, per Bloomberg. It wants lawmakers to write that framework into the rules for AI expansion. It also pledged to seek community input and publish construction plans, CNBC reported. "A lot happens in two years," Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, told Axios, comparing the industry's position to the 1996 presidential race that followed a midterm rout. Alongside a "Compute Campus Policy Blueprint," OpenAI outlined tens of millions of dollars in commitments for free school lunches, parks and first responders.
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Of 38 local ballot measures on data centers with complete counts, 37 went against development, according to preliminary results tracked by Washington polling firm Redbud Consulting, Fortune reported. Piqua, Ohio, residents recalled the mayor and two city commissioners who supported Meta's planned $1 billion data center there, which would draw up to 1.4 gigawatts. Voters in at least 14 Ohio municipalities approved bans or other restrictions. Axios counted restrictive measures in 10 states passing 43-1, with average support of 75%. "The impact may ultimately be less about restrictions than extracting more from data center operators for the social license to operate," Macquarie analysts wrote in a note.
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