alt.hn

6/26/2026 at 3:02:43 PM

The AI industry is pouring millions into US elections

 https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-industry-is-pouring-hundreds

by speckx

6/26/2026 at 4:13:02 PM

Millions? Makes me think of https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in...

by savanaly

6/26/2026 at 4:26:54 PM

Comparing almonds to elections might be my new favorite way of saying "comparing apples to oranges".

by ambicapter

6/26/2026 at 5:54:58 PM

A decade or so ago I participated in a (data-centric) hackathon having to do with water shortages in California. The acknowledged problem was data, or lack thereof. Most of the groups whistled past the graveyard and presented woulda-coulda "if we had the data / we can get the data by" proposals / findings.

We kept looking for the pony for most of the day. We found some pony exhaust, but we didn't find the pony. The rest of the group presented a plan for future research. I chose to give the minority report: based on the information we were able to obtain, California could solve its water shortage if every household ate 16 less almonds a day; an almond taking roughly one gallon of water to produce.

A couple years later the almond industry ran some ads that the "gallon of water" meme was somehow wrong, because other useful products were produced from almond trees besides almonds... so they said. Of course, it could have been a coincidence.

One of my team members (from Montana) shared a quote from Samuel Clemens: "whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over". That hasn't changed with data centers.

by m3047

6/26/2026 at 5:24:20 PM

But the comparison is of money spent

by nonethewiser

6/27/2026 at 1:00:51 AM

money spent ON X. Where X is almonds or elections.

by ambicapter

6/26/2026 at 3:42:50 PM

Tech Influence Watch site: https://influence.citationneeded.news/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48632474)

(Blog post: https://www.citationneeded.news/tech-influence-watch/)

by ChrisArchitect

6/26/2026 at 4:14:13 PM

Yeah, this is amazing and should be submitted here on its own if it hasn't already.

I just found that one of my reps got an absurd amount of money from some shadowy group called "Think Big". Which is in turn part of a larger org called "Leading the Future" [0], which is:

> A coordinated network of AI-industry super PACs working to head off stricter AI regulation, chiefly by pushing a single federal framework that would override stronger state-level rules on issues like consumer protection and liability. Leading the Future is the lead committee, channeling money to the Democratic-facing Think Big and the Republican-facing American Mission. All draw on the same core backers — chiefly Andreessen Horowitz, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife.

[0]: https://influence.citationneeded.news/2026/networks/leading-...

by thatmf

6/26/2026 at 4:00:39 PM

Very nice "Contributions by entity" visualization, thanks

by utopiah

6/26/2026 at 4:05:24 PM

Probably a sign that it is past time to tightly regulate all AI-aligned companies and their products to set up guard rails to prevent this level of corruption. I am a person who lives in a state where it is totally legal for lobbyists to walk the floor of the state legislature handing out envelopes of cash to any representative who will line up behind their proposed legislation. Bribery buys state laws here and it buys pretty much anything else that those with deep pockets desire.

One day people in this state will wake up and burn it all down by electing representatives who serve the people, not the corporate entities that desire a low drag place to do business. There are active anti-AI and data center groups now in the state. Once they get enough traction this bullshit will end.

Anyone at any of these AI companies that attempts to influence elections should be held accountable and should suffer the harshest consequences including confiscation of all personal assets. Multi-generational enforced poverty should be their reward.

Just my two cents.

by doodlebugging

6/26/2026 at 4:12:18 PM

Hahaha... regulation lol. That aint happening in the US. If you do see regulation it will be so crippled as to be meaningless but it'll give something politicians can talk about as "for the people". All regulations are written by industry insiders.

by voidfunc

6/26/2026 at 4:19:01 PM

Regulation is not possible with today's politics. But it can become possible as soon as January 2027 politics, which is largely determined by the 2026 November election.

by dragontamer

6/26/2026 at 4:42:51 PM

For decades people have proclaimed that we can fix things in the next election...but that has never happened in all of my existence and do not expected to happen in my life time. It's pure carrot chasing

by vinyl7

6/26/2026 at 6:51:21 PM

> For decades people have proclaimed that we can fix things in the next election

The secret of modern democracy is figuring out 2/4 years is how long it takes for people to forget the electoral promises that weren’t delivered upon.

But hey, next time my party is going to fix the economy, housing and corruption! Just remember to vote!

I still wonder how many elections does it take for one to see the farce of it.

by sph

6/26/2026 at 6:04:25 PM

But we were fixing things under Biden. The frozen potato cartel was defeated in court and Google was defeated in court as an illegal monopoly.

Then the Trump Administration came in (likely after donations from Google, and other tech bros) and suddenly that Google case was dropped.

Regulating against awful behaviors was happening under Biden, and no longer is happening under Trump. It's about as simple as night and day if you are paying attention.

What changes now is that historically, tech firms were largely apolitical. Today they are hard right support, so Democrats weren't used to memes or lack of free viral marketing (etc etc.)

Today, Democrats are finally waking up to the fact that they are being suppressed by both national media and tech media (Twitter and Facebook) and have begun gaining alternative means of getting their messaging out.

Things have gotten worse, but that causes the strategies to shift and the overall political fight to grow stronger.

by dragontamer

6/26/2026 at 4:23:37 PM

Nothing of substance will change in 2026. That goose is cooked already after all the gerry mandering

by voidfunc

6/26/2026 at 4:28:06 PM

Gerrymandering only affects House and the House is overwhelmingly looking like a Democrat victory.

Senate is statewide so it's innately immune to Gerrymandering. Like.... Do you even know what that word means?

by dragontamer

6/26/2026 at 4:47:28 PM

Democrats aren't winning the Senate. They are not lock ins for the House either.

I dont know what is so difficult about this for you.

by voidfunc

6/26/2026 at 6:03:15 PM

Are you proposing a different solution? Or are you content to be a cynic that does nothing?

by UtopiaPunk

6/26/2026 at 8:47:50 PM

The goal should be to run up the score of the popular vote as much as possible even in the face of anti-democratic shenanigans like gerrymandering or statistical voter suppression, e.g. how the SAVE act would make it harder for women (who lean Democratic) to exercise their right to vote (because it will require more documents for people who have changed their last name to prove their identities).

Manipulating the election and perpetuating minority rule rather than responding to popular will has its limitations. We need to be prepared for a second civil rights movement.

by rectang

6/26/2026 at 6:08:07 PM

Democrats have a disadvantage in this years Senate race yes. But polls have become so anti Trump these days that today, Senate races are looking 50/50 odds. Which is a huge benefit to Democrats when this years Senate race should be a Republican blowout (a lot of Texas, Georgia, Alaska kinda states up for Senate this year so Republicans should be winning. The fact that it's 50/50 in these states is down right crazy and shows how crap the Republican support is right now).

The House is a hilarious mix of terrible Gerrymandering (ex: Florida assuming that Latinos will vote Republican) or defeated Gerrymandering (Texas gerrymandering effect being defeated in court).

All in all, it's a hilarious self own where Republicans couldn't even be trusted to Gerrymander correctly and may have made the House a worse situation for themselves. So if anything, the Gerrymandering is seemingly leading to Democrat advantage because of how incompetent Republicans have been.

So as I said before: we are looking at House blowout for Democrats and even a surprise 50/50 odds for Senate. That is a huge change of that happens.

Your invocation of corruption/Gerrymandering doesn't mean anything if you actually look at what has happened. It only matters if Republicans Gerrymandered correctly.

by dragontamer

6/26/2026 at 5:55:09 PM

And who will do the regulating? The same politicians taking these bribes?

by paxys

6/26/2026 at 6:30:30 PM

I am very curious- what state?

by thatmf

6/26/2026 at 8:51:53 PM

Texas

by doodlebugging

6/26/2026 at 4:26:09 PM

First it was Search (mostly Google), then Social (mostly Facebook) now AI turning the global internet into their own unregulated playground due to pay to play on US soil.

All of which together will make algorithmic bias, data harvesting, and hyper-realistic misinformation flourish.

I really wonder when US citizens had enough. Third time is the proverbial charm?

by mindcrash

6/27/2026 at 2:31:16 AM

The almond industry is profitable

But what about the "AI industry"

by 1vuio0pswjnm7

6/26/2026 at 4:14:58 PM

So they want a bailout when the inevitable happens.

by pydry

6/26/2026 at 3:56:33 PM

This is interesting. I wonder how this might affect laws and regulations.

by rizsyed1

6/26/2026 at 4:51:03 PM

We aren't even getting a kiss.

by hackingonempty

6/26/2026 at 3:23:42 PM

how long before “AI agents have voting rights too” becomes real

by ausbah

6/26/2026 at 3:46:20 PM

No need for that. People will ask their favorite AI who to vote for anyway.

by bulbar

6/26/2026 at 3:47:50 PM

I fully expect to see Grok proactively offer to help you with your ballot

by ortusdux

6/26/2026 at 4:34:27 PM

This will actually dovetail perfectly with candidates using AI to write up their policy stances and work it into dynamic, emotionally appealing stump speeches.

by mullingitover

6/26/2026 at 4:32:30 PM

I got mine to build me an interactive quiz for the UK elections, unsure if that's better or worse... It felt not so biased but who knows right?

by firtoz

6/26/2026 at 5:24:43 PM

My intuition is the more you think it's unbiased the worse is it.

by bulbar

6/26/2026 at 4:39:53 PM

The bias will come from your prompt. Asking AI - If voting for Reform UK is a good/bad idea? - shows AI where you at and what sycophantic it needs to give. AI is certainly not biased :)

by thisisit

6/26/2026 at 3:47:46 PM

Never? Even the whole "corporations are people too" meme where this sentiment presumably originated from is often misunderstood. It doesn't mean corporations have the same rights as people, it just means they can conduct transactions and can sue/be used. It doesn't mean they can vote.

by gruez

6/26/2026 at 4:00:33 PM

I thought that the "corporations are people" meme was the actual rationale for why corpos "should" be allowed to spend money on elections: spending money for political purposes is free speech, and people have the right to free speech, and corpos are people, so corpos have the right to spend money for political purposes.

by tines

6/26/2026 at 4:19:15 PM

>spending money for political purposes is free speech, and people have the right to free speech, and corpos are people, so corpos have the right to spend money for political purposes.

From wikipedia:

>The majority also held that the First Amendment's free press clause protects associations of individuals in addition to individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the speaker's identity. Corporations, as associations of individuals, therefore have free speech rights under the First Amendment.

In other words, corporations have the right to spend money for political purposes not because of corporate personhood or "corporations are people too", it's because first amendment protections apply to associations of people. This covers corporations, but also includes other groups like trade unions.

by gruez

6/26/2026 at 4:48:50 PM

The flaw in this reasoning is that corporations are not merely associations of people; they are a special kind of association of people, which can be regulated specially. Hence, I think, why some have stripped away this motivated language and reduced it to the more honest and obviously absurd "corporations are people too."

by tines

6/26/2026 at 5:24:03 PM

>The flaw in this reasoning is that corporations are not merely associations of people; they are a special kind of association of people, which can be regulated specially.

You realize republicans can make the same argument to bash unions?

by gruez

6/26/2026 at 6:16:38 PM

Sure, I don't have a problem with unions being restricted from political donations either.

Just like corporations can be regulated for monopoly (which by the logic that "corporations, as mere groups of people, have all the same rights as people" should be unregulatable because individuals have the right to assemble), we can regulate them for other things, without contradiction.

by tines

6/26/2026 at 5:53:52 PM

They already have. Unions generally can't donate to political campaigns, and can't do things like strike in solidarity with other unions which would be pretty clearly be speech if we're counting corporate donations to political campaigns as speech.

by monocasa

6/26/2026 at 5:55:58 PM

> Unions generally can't donate to political campaigns

???

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/carpenters-joiners-union/su...

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/service-employees-internati...

>and can't do things like strike in solidarity with other unions which would be pretty clearly be speech if we're counting corporate donations to political campaigns as speech.

Seems like a stretch to lump industrial action with political donations.

by gruez

6/26/2026 at 6:02:37 PM

> ???

It's complex, but those are not donations to a candidate, even more so than the normal PAC and Super PAC song and dance. You have to give up your non profit status to donate more directly to a candidates campaign.

> Seems like a stretch to lump industrial action with political donations.

Seems like a stretch to say that political donations are speech and should be protected, but literal picketing isn't.

by monocasa

6/26/2026 at 6:35:02 PM

>It's complex, but those are not donations to a candidate, even more so than the normal PAC and Super PAC song and dance. You have to give up your non profit status to donate more directly to a candidates campaign.

Doesn't that apply to corporations as well? If you click on a random company[1], you see a notice that says

>NOTE: Organizations themselves cannot contribute to candidates and party committees. Figures on this page include contributions and spending by affiliates.

and indeed, I don't see any candidates. This more or less matches the recipients list for unions.

[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/citadel-llc/summary?id=D000...

> Seems like a stretch to say that political donations are speech and should be protected, but literal picketing isn't.

Are you sure that the reason why solidarity strikes are banned because union members are holding up a bunch of signs, and not say... walking off the job?

by gruez

6/26/2026 at 6:43:39 PM

> Doesn't that apply to corporations as well? If you click on a random company[1], you see a notice that says

No. For profit corporations can donate to PACs that are directly in support of a candidate rather than a broad swath of policy. It's a non profit versus profit distinction that creates this additional ratchet.

> Are you sure that the reason why solidarity strikes are banned because union members are holding up a bunch of signs, and not say... walking off the job?

How is that not one of the most fundamental forms of protected speech?

by monocasa

6/26/2026 at 7:05:23 PM

>No. For profit corporations can donate to PACs that are directly in support of a candidate rather than a broad swath of policy. It's a non profit versus profit distinction that creates this additional ratchet.

So make the union for-profit instead? In other words the distinction isn't corporations vs unions, it's for-profit vs non-profit. This seems.. okay? What's the alternative, that organizations can get tax breaks and do whatever politicking they want?

>How is that not one of the most fundamental forms of protected speech?

Walking off the job when you have an agreement not to walk off the job is "protected speech"?

by gruez

6/26/2026 at 7:28:36 PM

> So make the union for-profit instead? In other words the distinction isn't corporations vs unions, it's for-profit vs non-profit. This seems.. okay? What's the alternative, that organizations can get tax breaks and do whatever politicking they want?

The alternative is neither get to do politicking rather than only those who aren't formally working for some public good.

> Walking off the job when you have an agreement not to walk off the job is "protected speech"?

Yeah, it's called a protest.

They're allowed to walk off for their own issues. It's solidarity strikes that are banned. Ie. the nature of the speech is what makes it illegal.

by monocasa

6/26/2026 at 4:13:52 PM

That was the Citizens United reasoning yes and it was wholly absurd unless you really wanted to empower the executive class.

by XorNot

6/26/2026 at 3:49:48 PM

It does in one town in Delaware, at least: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/delaware-court-upho...

by wat10000

6/26/2026 at 4:05:40 PM

The thing that stuck with me is the awful reasoning by the judge: "Judge rules Fenwick Island's corporate voting does not dilute human votes"

How could corporations voting not dilute the human votes by the very nature and reason of voting in the first place?

by weaksauce

6/26/2026 at 5:22:14 PM

>How could corporations voting not dilute the human votes by the very nature and reason of voting in the first place?

Because you're being misled (i.e. lied to) about the actual nature of the situation.

This is a snooty vacation town shithole. Non-resident landowners have been allowed to vote here since day 1. The purpose of incorporating as a town is/was essentially to have a town that's run by business. Think like City of Industry CA fucked the Hamptons, this is the kid.

Back when they did this in 1950-whatever this worked fine. All the land was owned by McScumbag A, McScumbag B and McScumbag C who invariably lived in DC, NYC, etc, etc. Back then people owned vacation cottages, businesses, motels, etc, etc, in their own name. So, as everything moved to LLCs and whatnot over the years the scummy developers and investors slowly lost influence to the "filthy townies" or whatever and so in 2000-whatever they amended their constitution to allow their LLCs to vote and now, here we are litigating the implications in court.

Yeah, it's stupid on like a dozen different levels but this isn't the "random normal-ish town goes apeshit and decide to let DuPont vote" it's being cast as. This town was already apeshit, it's just being fought about in court.

And INB4 anyone puts words in my mouth, no I don't support the ruling.

by cucumber3732842

6/26/2026 at 4:27:49 PM

Corporations can vote now. If they own land. In some states.

Which is fine, they only get one vote.

But they can also divide a piece of land into small plots, make a bunch of shell companies, each one owning a small piece of land, and vote using that.

by otikik

6/26/2026 at 6:45:18 PM

This was discussed previously on Hackernews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48295460

Isn't this just on Fenwick Island? And the state would have to approve the (possibly suspicious) creation of numerous shell companies for this purpose.

by akramachamarei

6/26/2026 at 3:56:36 PM

It also allows them to be sued. I suppose we could have other mechanisms to sue companies but this is what we’ve come up with.

by mc32

6/26/2026 at 4:03:57 PM

"Corporate Personhood" allows the corporate entity to be a responsibility sink for the owners. They alternative is that people can sue the owners/officers directly for the "actions" of the corporation.

by jordanb

6/26/2026 at 4:11:19 PM

Sure but you need to be able to get to “someone” when say the owner skips town or dies or… plus this firewall makes it so people will be more willing to build businesses.

by mc32

6/26/2026 at 5:01:07 PM

> Sure but you need to be able to get to “someone” when say the owner skips town or dies or…

And now you get to "nobody at all" when effectively nothing happens to the leaders the instant the need to bear accountability

> plus this firewall makes it so people will be more willing to build businesses.

Doubt.

by ezst

6/26/2026 at 4:29:24 PM

Which is obviously messed.

"We can direct the corporation we own to dump raw sewage into rivers but you can't hold us accountable personally for that decision" is an absolutely messed way to run things

by bluefirebrand

6/26/2026 at 4:16:00 PM

Requiring one function does not require the other though.

"Corporate personhood" is a legal concept where how person-like a corporation is can be defined in whichever way is convenient to how we want the law to operate.

by XorNot

6/26/2026 at 4:21:24 PM

Making it hard for politically inconvenient humans to vote is more straightforward than granting AI agents the right to vote.

by rectang

6/26/2026 at 3:46:13 PM

"AI right are human rights!"

by Joker_vD

6/26/2026 at 4:26:00 PM

If it's for sale, someone will buy

by otikik

6/26/2026 at 4:18:01 PM

So about the same amount as the spend on a single row in a datacenter?

by tiahura

6/26/2026 at 4:04:23 PM

If businesspeople want to get involved in politics, they should have the courage to run for office like anybody else. Lurking on the sidelines and waiving money around is really lame and laughable.

by AvAn12

6/26/2026 at 4:18:51 PM

If your business is large enough, if you don't donate to politicians, they will target your business.

The government is massive and inserts itself into business operations all the time. The inevitable results happen.

by WalterBright

6/26/2026 at 5:10:49 PM

There ARE regulations for sure. But they exist to protect the population at large. For example, food safety laws were not created out of government hostility but rather because food was unsafe. Read (or read about) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair if you want to get creeped out about the food industry in the 1930s before regulations

by AvAn12

6/26/2026 at 9:05:40 PM

Are you suggesting that government use of power is always benevolent?

Consider the enormous difficulty and expense people in Palisades have getting permits to rebuild.

Yes, I read "The Jungle". It's a work of fiction, not a documentary. So is "The Grapes of Wrath".

by WalterBright

6/26/2026 at 4:08:59 PM

There are people who couldn't care less about political power, but want certain laws passed, and have lots of money. And then there those who couldn't care less about much of anything besides gaining political power and see money and quid quo pro as means to achieve that.

by somenameforme

6/26/2026 at 4:11:53 PM

Then those people are on the sidelines like every other citizen. Play the game or be a spectator. Nobody gets to have it both ways.

by AvAn12

6/26/2026 at 4:19:33 PM

You have very interesting ideas on how the world should be run. A pity that others ignore them and just do whatever suits them better.

by Joker_vD

6/26/2026 at 3:54:39 PM

"Voting with your Wallet" - the American way.

by jlarocco

6/26/2026 at 5:34:20 PM

The problem is you can’t really limit money without limiting speech. Perhaps it’s still in the public interest to do so, but the constitution doesn’t allow it.

by nonethewiser

6/26/2026 at 11:07:42 PM

There is only one country where money is considered speech.

It is very abnormal, and is legal bribery.

by testing22321

6/27/2026 at 12:09:02 AM

Other countries also don’t have the first amendment.

Yet they still have paid political ads. All political advertisements arent banned in other countries. Should they be?

by nonethewiser

6/26/2026 at 4:05:32 PM

The rich love the concept of voting with your wallet, because by definition they get shitloads more votes than you.

by ToucanLoucan

6/26/2026 at 4:19:44 PM

Ballot harvesting should be made illegal.

by WalterBright

6/26/2026 at 6:30:25 PM

How you define it, exactly?

by akramachamarei

6/26/2026 at 5:30:24 PM

Yup

by nonethewiser

6/26/2026 at 5:35:19 PM

Well its not voting that they buy. Its more like representation.

by nonethewiser

6/26/2026 at 3:47:41 PM

What major industry in the US hasn’t been doing that for decades?

At this point it’s a perfectly common cost of doing business there. Pay money to get favourable laws passed. But it’s not bribery. No no no.

by testing22321

6/26/2026 at 3:32:58 PM

I mean many of these companies are doing tens of billions in revenue each, meanwhile their home state is becoming increasingly hostile to their presence. That said this article shares no numbers so I have no idea what the scope or scale of their impact is.

by guywithahat