Who's really running AI? Inside the billion-dollar battle over regulation, with Alex Bores

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2026

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Pentagon is playing chicken with Anthropic over who gets to control how the military uses AI while communities across the country are blocking data center construction. As the AI debate has been flattened to “doomers versus boomers,” one state legislator is attempting to walk a middle road. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Alex Bores, New York Assembly member and congressional candidate. Bores sponsored New York's first-of-its-kind AI safety law the RAISE Act — and quickly became the target of a Silicon Valley super PAC with $125 million to spend on attack ads. Listen to the full episode to hear about: The dueling super PACs now fighting over AI's future, and why Anthropic's $20 million bet on the pro-regulation side matters. What the RAISE Act actually requires, why it's being called the blueprint for AI regulation nationwide. Whether AI regulation ends up looking like finance and biotech or goes the way of social media — largely unregulated until the damage is done. What's coming next from Bores’ office: bills on training data disclosure, content provenance, and a 43-point national AI framework. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to Equity TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
0:04.4	I'm Rebecca Boulon, and we're doing something a little different here today instead of our usual Friday roundtable.
0:10.0	This week, we've seen the Department of Defense putting pressure on Anthropic to allow unrestricted use of its AI in the military.
0:16.5	Meanwhile, across the country, people are rising up against AI data center buildouts.
0:58.1	I'm not sure about all of you, but my Twitter feed is full of industry people breaking down the conversation into doomers versus boomers, the people who think AI will save us all and the people who think it will kill us all. I think that most people are actually somewhere in the middle. There's a lot of us out there who see the awesome power of AI and want to make sure that it's rolled out responsibly, that safety is taken into account rather than just moving fast and breaking things and enriching tech oligarchs. This is something that touches all of our lives. One of the people who is attempting to walk the middle road is Alex Bores. He's a New York assembly member who's running for New York's 12th congressional district, and he's made headlines in recent months after incurring the wrath of Silicon Valley billionaires for his role in sponsoring New York's Raise Act and AI Safety Bill.
1:08.8	Okay, Alex, welcome to the show.
1:11.2	Thanks for having me.
1:12.0	Really excited to see you again.
1:13.5	When we last met, I believe that was in D.C.
1:15.7	And we were both at an AGI conference trying to learn a little bit more about how do we govern this?
1:20.1	How do we deal with this?
1:21.2	So, yeah, clearly a lot has happened in the last few months.
1:24.3	And talking about the politics of it and the way that lobbying is happening around it.
1:29.5	And so, yeah, a lot of developments there as well.
1:32.8	Yeah, I think on that day, actually, was the day that leading the future, which is a Silicon Valley pro-AI pact, backed by Joe Lonsdale.
1:41.7	It's backed by A16C, backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman.
1:46.1	That's the day that they decided that they were going to come after you. And I think they've
1:50.1	spent, what was it, like a hundred, no, sorry, they've spent one million dollars on campaign ads
1:55.7	against you. I think they've already spent like 1.3 million. They just did another seven figure ad buy.
2:03.3	They have committed to spending at least $10 million against me.
2:07.2	It's you, a little old you.
2:10.6	My reaction exactly.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TechCrunch, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TechCrunch and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.