ControlAI Runs Hundreds of Hill Meetings on AI Extinction Risk

The Washington Post reports that 'billionaire-backed AI safety activists have significantly expanded their Capitol Hill lobbying,' with groups like ControlAI running hundreds of member and staff meetings focused on the risks of superintelligent AI.

ControlAI's US arm is run by Connor Leahy, formerly of Conjecture, and pushes lawmakers past ordinary regulation toward an outright prohibition on the development of superintelligence. The group says it has helped citizens send more than 120,000 messages to elected officials in support of that position.

Its sole publicly named funder is Jaan Tallinn, the Skype founding engineer who led Anthropic's Series A and sits on Anthropic's board as an observer. Tallinn's positioning cuts across the story: he is both an early Anthropic backer and the funder of the group most publicly arguing that companies like Anthropic should not be permitted to build superintelligence.

The pressure is finding openings. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon shared a stage this week at a Washington 'Pro-Human Assembly' to press Congress on faster AI curbs, and Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar's Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act was reportedly shaped in consultation with ControlAI. It lands in the middle of our recent run of regulation coverage on a Washington that is stirring on AI but has yet to pass much of anything.