OpenAI chief outlines 2028 election priorities amid safety stance shift
OpenAI's chief global affairs officer proposed five policy priorities for the 2028 election, including worker protections and data center development. The essay follows a recent shift by OpenAI from opposing to supporting state-level AI safety regulations.
Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, published an essay arguing that the 2028 presidential election will be a defining moment for artificial intelligence. He compared AI's economic potential to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and proposed five policy priorities: worker protections, education, AI safety, data center development, and tax code changes. Lehane warned that supporting a data center moratorium jeopardizes America's lead over China, comparing such a stance to the 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq War. He also advocated for enforceable AI safety standards, independent evaluations, and kill switches, while arguing against keeping AI out of classrooms to prevent inequality.
The essay follows a notable shift in OpenAI's regulatory position. In 2024, the company opposed California's SB 1047, which mandated catastrophic risk evaluations and shutdown capabilities, arguing that state regulation could undermine innovation. More recently, OpenAI has backed several state safety laws and stated it would be open to independent evaluators embedded in the company. Kate Brennan of the AI Now Institute criticized the essay as ahistorical and disingenuous, noting that it is written by a private company advocating for its own benefit. Brennan pointed to OpenAI's history of opposing legislation designed to impose safety measures as evidence of this disingenuousness. OpenAI did not respond to requests for specifics on its proposals by publication time.