{"id":64428,"date":"2026-06-06T09:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T09:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/64428\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T09:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T09:23:08","slug":"a-i-companies-dont-know-what-to-do-with-alex-bores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/64428\/","title":{"rendered":"A.I. Companies Don\u2019t Know What to Do With Alex Bores"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the crowded Democratic primary race to succeed Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, there are candidates who stand out for their names<\/a>, or perhaps for their visibility on television<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Assemblyman Alex Bores does not match either description. Yet he has arguably become the race\u2019s biggest and most polarizing figure, with a total of more than $12 million spent by outside groups for and against him.<\/p>\n

The reason?<\/p>\n

Last year, Mr. Bores sponsored a bill in Albany seeking to regulate<\/a> advanced artificial intelligence models. An expensive pitched battle ensued, giving him an outsize role at the center of an urgent global debate.<\/p>\n

And once Mr. Bores entered the House race in Manhattan, he became an immediate target for some of the industry\u2019s largest companies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex Bores. Wrong on A.I. Wrong for Congress,\u201d one attack ad said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHypocrite,\u201d read another. \u201cLiar,\u201d said one more.<\/p>\n

For months, district voters have received a steady barrage of mail, texts and television spots trained at Mr. Bores, who first joined the State Assembly in 2023 and whose district on the East Side lies inside the congressional district. These messages are part of a multimillion-dollar assault on his candidacy from a super PAC, Leading the Future<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Close to $75 million has flowed to the group<\/a> from Silicon Valley heavyweights like Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir, and Greg Brockman, a co-founder of OpenAI. So far, $6.2 million has been spent against Mr. Bores, according to federal filings.<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s largest competitor, Anthropic, has argued for more government oversight and a more cautious approach to the development of new A.I. tools. It has backed Mr. Bores from the start, with employees donating at least<\/a> $186,000 to his campaign.<\/p>\n

Far more has flowed to outside groups supporting him. Four super PACs \u2014 all with ties to Anthropic or its ideological allies \u2014 have spent about $6.5 million defending Mr. Bores or attacking<\/a> his opponents<\/a>, according to federal filings.<\/p>\n

Chris Larsen, a billionaire crypto investor, spent $3.5 million to help Mr. Bores<\/a> \u201cwhen he learned that OpenAI was deliberately targeting\u201d Mr. Bores\u2019s campaign, according to Alex Tourk, a spokesman for Mr. Larsen.<\/p>\n

All that money and attention to Mr. Bores has cast a shadow over the race to represent the 12th District, which includes some of New York\u2019s wealthiest neighborhoods: the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and Midtown Manhattan<\/a>. Many of his rivals are struggling to compete for attention amid the battle of tech behemoths that has Mr. Bores in the middle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never heard of him until I saw the ads attacking him,\u201d said Michael Paluszek, a 40-year resident of Stuyvesant Town.<\/p>\n

Mr. Paluszek shifted his support from another candidate once he learned more about Mr. Bores, and he plans to volunteer and \u201cown the corner of East 14th Street and Avenue A,\u201d at the district\u2019s southernmost reaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to be my corner,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Bores said that his interest in A.I. stemmed from his experience working at these companies and his understanding of how they work. He said he had already heard from members of Congress who were excited to work on the issue if he is elected, and he had a stock reply for them: Don\u2019t wait for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to be there for eight months,\u201d he said. \u201cTake it. I have no pride of ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n

His expertise on the subject will be an asset for Democrats, he said. Despite the assertions of his opponents, he said, his focus as a legislator has never been on giving one company an advantage over another. Sometimes he reads the inflammatory texts the PACs have sent and wonders how they could possibly be ascribed to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people that come to this from the A.I. safety angle or A.I. regulatory angle, we were the first people to say: \u2018Hey, this is really powerful and that\u2019s why we think there needs to be regulation, but it can also be used for good,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bores did not set out to be an A.I. expert. As a student at Cornell University, Mr. Bores wanted to become a lawyer focused on international trade and labor rights. That remained his goal as he excelled at debate, protested Nike\u2019s use of sweatshops and won an elected seat on the university\u2019s board of trustees. Friends described Mr. Bores as an intensely focused striver.<\/p>\n

Kate Bronfenbrenner, a university professor and an early mentor of Mr. Bores, said he was not doing \u201ccrazy things,\u201d as many other campus activists were.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the one saying, \u2018OK, let\u2019s figure out where they\u2019re vulnerable,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cHe was always strategic.\u201d<\/p>\n

For financial and other reasons, Mr. Bores decided against going to law school. He earned a master\u2019s degree in computer science and worked at tech companies for years.<\/p>\n

After a year in consulting, Mr. Bores in 2014 joined Palantir, then a budding start-up focused on analyzing reams of data for government agencies. Even then, the company was already being criticized for helping expand government surveillance capabilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his roughly four years at Palantir, Mr. Bores worked with the Justice Department to investigate pharmacies that were overprescribing opioids and helped hospitals operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs be better supplied, among other things.<\/p>\n

Leading the Future and other candidates in the race have attacked Mr. Bores\u2019s work for Palantir, tying it to the company\u2019s contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Palantir has become a flashpoint in many Democratic primaries across the country, as the company continues to support President Trump\u2019s immigration agenda.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bores said that he did not work with ICE while at Palantir, and that the company\u2019s ties to the agency contributed to his departure in 2019 \u2014 a decision that meant leaving \u201cgenerational wealth on the table,\u201d he said in an interview this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In recent months, Mr. Bores divested his small holdings in the company, which were based on index fund investments, and donated<\/a> the proceeds<\/a>. He sold between $900,000 and $1.3 million in Palantir stock, according to financial disclosures filed with the state in 2021 and 2022. By leaving when he did, Mr. Bores said, he forfeited another $2 million in shares based on the stock\u2019s value in September 2021.<\/p>\n

Ms. Bronfenbrenner applauded Mr. Bores\u2019s stand against the industry figures attacking him and said that his tech work informs how he legislates. Still, she believes he could have left Palantir sooner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many, including many of his close friends, who believed he waited too long,\u201d Ms. Bronfenbrenner said.<\/p>\n

After working at several smaller tech start-ups, Mr. Bores arrived in Albany and made technology regulation one of his priorities.<\/p>\n

Influenced by his industry experience, Mr. Bores said he believed that with the proper guardrails, there was an enormous opportunity for these technologies to have an immense and positive impact on society.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is such a concentration of power in so few hands in terms of the ability to get things done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in this dangerous race condition where there are incentives to put safety to the side.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Mr. Bores began crafting rules for the safe development of the most advanced A.I. models for his bill, which became known as the RAISE Act, he knew there would be significant pushback because so much money was at stake. As a result, he sought the input of Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he thinks it will help inform a bill that will do some good and pass, he takes the meeting,\u201d said Jon Weinberg, a college friend and later his legislative counsel.<\/p>\n

After the RAISE Act passed, an army of lobbyists and company representatives worked to neuter its key components or kill it outright. They ultimately convinced Gov. Kathy Hochul that certain provisions of the legislation would stymie growth and innovation.<\/p>\n

She agreed to sign the bill but extracted key concessions that watered down some of its enforcement mechanisms. Despite Mr. Bores\u2019s frustrations with her demands, he accepted them and declared victory.<\/p>\n

The companies opposing Mr. Bores did, as well. Think Big, a super PAC affiliated with Leading the Future, supported the final version of the RAISE Act because it \u201cprotects start-ups by focusing on large frontier labs and setting standards for transparency and risk management.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, as the bill\u2019s fate hung in the balance, the group targeted Mr. Bores, blasting his \u201cideological and politically motivated legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The political allegiances of the donors to Think Big offered a coherence to Mr. Bores\u2019s campaign. In such a thoroughly Democratic district, all the candidates were searching for ways to present themselves as a capable bulwark against Mr. Trump. (One candidate, George T. Conway III, has based his entire campaign<\/a> on his history of opposing the president.)<\/p>\n

Mr. Bores was being targeted by some of Mr. Trump\u2019s largest donors, Mr. Brockman and Mr. Lonsdale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe A.I. oligarchs who are rigging our economy are scared of me,\u201d Mr. Bores said at a televised candidates\u2019 debate on Thursday. \u201cThey named me their No. 1 enemy and said they would spend at least $10 million to defeat me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the crowded Democratic primary race to succeed Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, there are candidates who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,18544,1556,25,32692,2814,32689,1672,1588,651,32688,36477,1552],"class_list":["post-64428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-alex","tag-anthropic-ai-llc","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bores","tag-democratic-party","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-new-york-state","tag-openai-labs","tag-palantir-technologies","tag-political-action-committees","tag-primaries-and-caucuses","tag-regulation-and-deregulation-of-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}