Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has highlighted what he describes as a significant political spending effort by the artificial intelligence industry aimed at opposing stricter regulations. In a post on X on Tuesday, Sanders cited a statistic indicating that 81% of Americans believe Congress is not doing enough to regulate AI.
The senator argued that this public sentiment is being undermined by the technology sector's financial influence. He stated that the AI industry is spending more than $300 million against candidates who support stronger AI oversight. Sanders urged lawmakers to resist pressure from powerful technology companies, advising them to "stand up to Big Tech Oligarchs" and "Regulate AI."
The article notes that earlier in the month, actor George Clooney questioned whether lawmakers were equipped to regulate AI, warning that they are "not the people that you want to entrust the holy grail with." Clooney also highlighted the potential for AI-generated falsehoods and deepfakes to make it difficult to distinguish reality from fiction.
In related developments, the article mentions that Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) reportedly backed a $300 million loan for AI infrastructure startup Crusoe. This financing was intended to help Crusoe deploy AMD chips while advancing AMD's efforts to compete with Nvidia. Additionally, Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM) planned to spend about $300 million on Anthropic’s AI for coding, and PhysicsX raised an oversubscribed $300 million Series C at a valuation of about $2.4 billion.
