OpenAI is already trying to shape the 2028 election

OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane published an essay arguing that the 2028 presidential election could be a defining moment for AI, and urging politicians to develop policies addressing Americans' economic anxieties rather than simply paying lip service to anti-AI sentiment and backlash against data centers. Lehane compares AI's potential to reshape the economy to FDR's New Deal, and lays out five policy priorities spanning worker protections, education, AI safety, and data center development. The essay follows a Democratic victory in the midterms where data center opposition emerged as a bipartisan concern. Critics like Kate Brennan of the AI Now Institute note that many proposals would encourage wider AI adoption and support infrastructure expansion that companies like OpenAI need, without holding AI companies accountable for economic disruption; she calls the New Deal comparison "ahistorical at best and harmful at worst." Lehane offers few concrete proposals to prevent AI's gains from becoming concentrated, instead pitching AI as a path to prosperity for those willing to embrace it. He also emphasizes child safety and education, warns against keeping AI out of classrooms, and calls for enforceable safety standards and kill switches—positions Brennan calls "disingenuous" given OpenAI's history of opposing such legislation, including California's SB 1047. The essay frames AI as restoring Americans' agency and economic opportunity, though whether his policies would redistribute power or entrench it remains unclear.

(Source：TechCrunch)