As the AI industry continues to balloon, so does its army of lackeys ready to buttonhole lawmakers for favorable regulation. According to aby the consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen, thousands of AI lobbyists have descended upon the Capitol, in a dramatic surge of influence that's already coincided with major policy decisions.
Between 2019 and 2022, the number of lobbyists sent by corporations and other groups on AI-related issues stayed relatively equal year-to-year, hovering around 1,500. Then in 2023, things went off the charts, with over 3,400 lobbyists flooding Washington DC — an increase of more than 120 percent. "We're reaching a point where the policies that are going to shape AI policy in the next 10 years are really being decided now," Mike Tanglis, research director at Public Citizen's Congress Watch division,. "From our perspective, having the leading voices on an issue being those that stand to make billions of dollars is generally not a good idea for the public."Those numbers show that the AI lobby has had a sizeable presence for years.
One of the more brazen displays of the industry's sway over the federal government took place last fall, when dozens of tech leaders, from Elon Musk to Sam Altman,Unsurprisingly, a plurality of the lobbyists today comes from the tech industry — 700 of them, or 20 percent of that total. But a mix of 17 different industries comprised the other 80 percent, illustrating the wide scope of intersecting interests in AI.
Advocacy groups accounted for the next largest chunk with 425 lobbyists, of whom could be pro or anti-AI. Others included defense, health care, financial services, and education, all with clear stakes.What's also interesting isn't just where these lobbyists are coming from, but where they're going. Excluding both houses of Congress — the most obvious target — the White House was the most lobbied body of the federal government last year, with over 1,100 lobbyists.