In New York's 12th congressional district, a primary fight over AI regulation has produced an unexpected outcome: the candidate being targeted by millions in attack ads is now more famous than ever. Alex Bores, a once little-known state assemblyman who authored significant AI safety legislation, has become the unlikely poster child for the AI regulation movement thanks in large part to the campaign against him.
Leading the Future, a super PAC backed by OpenAI, Palantir, and executives from venture firm a16z, has poured millions into defeating Bores ahead of the June Democratic primary. Anthropic has spent on the other side. The result is a textbook Streisand Effect: the more money spent trying to erase someone from the conversation, the louder that conversation gets.
By the time voters head to the polls, the AI industry will have spent extraordinary sums turning a local New York race into a national referendum on who gets to write the rules for artificial intelligence. Whether Bores wins or loses, the industry handed him a platform it never intended to give.
