By admin 
Alex Bores wants you to know that he’s not “anti-A.I.” And the pro-A.I. advocacy group attacking him wants you to know that the industry isn’t against Alex Bores—or at least not all of it is. And yet, Alex Bores may just get a seat in Congress because people see him as the “anti-A.I. guy.” What is going on here?
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Let’s back up a bit. Bores, a New York state representative, is running for an open U.S. House seat representing a chunk of Manhattan. It’s a crowded field that includes a member of the Kennedy clan, a Republican turned Bluesky superposter, and a candidate with the financial backing of none other than Michael Bloomberg. (Put a pin in all that for now.) But in that crowded field, Bores has gotten attention for his stance on the A.I. industry.
Specifically, Bores co-authored a New York state law (the RAISE Act) that requires A.I. companies to test their models for safety and disclose other pertinent information. As a candidate, he’s advocating a similar federal law and has for regulating A.I. He’s also argued for a of sorts where average Americans would get money from advancements in A.I. technology.
Despite all that, Bores, a former employee of surveillance tech giant Palantir, insists he’s not against A.I.—he’s just trying to make it work for those of us still stubbornly clinging to our carbon-based brains.
In fact, Bores says he used A.I. to help him write his legislation to regulate A.I. He described how he worked with the Business Council of New York State to sift through pages of antiquated New York statutes to update business laws, saying it wouldn’t have been possible—or at least easy—without A.I.
And he thinks A.I. can be harnessed to make government more efficient and effective for constituents. He discussed how he used A.I. to update code for Google Maps and similar navigation websites so it tracked a tram that went between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan. “I was like, ‘Wait A.I. is good enough at this,’ ” Bores said. “ ‘Here is the format, here is the schedule, I’ll update this,’ and in 10 minutes I had the schedule updated and ready to go. So it was enabling a direct delivery of government services that wasn’t being done.”
But his “yes A.I., not to unfettered A.I.” approach, he says, is a bridge too far for some in the industry who refuse to be regulated.
“They’ve put up quotes about how they’re trying to make an example of me and how their focus is to not just win one congressional race but to send a message to every other member of Congress that you’re not allowed to regulate A.I. at all,” Bores told me in a recent interview. “It’s: ‘You tried to regulate it, we’re going to bury you.’ ”
Bores is, in part, referring to a campaign waged by Think Big PAC, a pro-A.I. advocacy group that is spending big against Bores. A new ad from a few days ago accused Bores of lying about everything he’s said about Palantir. That ad threw in the favorite attack lines of Bores’ Palantir-aligned opponents: that he quit after being warned about sexually explicit comments he made (Bores has denied the context of this and said Palantir did perform the usual HR process for handling such an accusation) and that he was burned out from the company.
Think Big is leaning on Bores’ Palantir ties, accusing Bores of building the technology in use by Immigration and Customs Enforcement—a damning association in a deeply liberal district. Bores has said he expressed objections internally about doing work with ICE.
And the group says Bores’ framing of the race is misleading: In a statement, Josh Vlasto, one of the top strategists running the super PAC, said his group isn’t against regulation: “Our goal is to pass a national regulatory framework that creates jobs for American workers, wins the race against China, and protects the safety of kids, families, and communities.”
And here’s where it gets extra complicated: Think Big notes that Bores is also getting a lot of support from a pair of super PACs associated with Anthropic, an A.I. company—albeit one a bit more friendly with would-be A.I. regulators. Those donations, Vlasto said, are driven in part by Bores’ and the donors’ mutual affinity for “effective altruism,” a philosophy that focuses on maximizing good in the world. (That sounds, well, great. But in practice, the movement’s definitions of good and how to maximize it are at times controversial. It’s a whole thing.) “Bores’ entire campaign is being propped up by Anthropic, its investors, and effective altruist–aligned groups funneling millions through dark-money super PACs to advance their fringe ideology and control A.I. for themselves,” Vlasto said.
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As unpleasant as it sounds to have someone spend millions attacking your character and candidacy, it seems to be pretty good politics to get crosswise with A.I.
A Gallup survey recently found that less than 20 percent of Americans between 14 and 29 are hopeful about A.I. A separate Economist/YouGov poll found that 51 percent of U.S. adult citizens are pessimistic about the long-term effects of A.I. while just 25 percent are optimistic. Majorities among Democrats and independents are pessimistic, the poll found, and a plurality of Republicans are pessimistic.
It’s also a way for Bores to get attention in a race full of candidates with larger platforms. The race to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (who has been in Congress since 1992) is a competitive and expensive one, with a dozen candidates on the ballot in the primary. Over $3 million has been spent in the primary opposing Bores. But the tide is shifting there, and Transformer, a news site covering A.I., reported that over $4.5 million has been spent in support of the New York assemblyman.
Polling is scant and not super reliable, but some surveys suggest the race’s front-runner is Micah Lasher, a state representative from the district’s west side whose Bloomberg backing affords him ample funds to spend on advertising.
But the biggest names in the race are Jack Schlossberg and George Conway. Schlossberg is a Kennedy, and that alone has gotten him plenty of attention—though not all of it positive. One New York Times report made the rounds particularly because of its opening anecdote about the candidate disappearing at a critical juncture because he needed a nap.
And then there’s Conway, a former Republican (and ex-husband to Trump 1.0 propagandist Kellyanne Conway) who gets a lot of attention as a #Resistance poster railing against the president. (His follower count on Twitter and Bluesky is around 3 million.)
Still, Bores keeps getting attention and racking up endorsements, and if he wins the primary on June 23, it will be in large part because voters see him as the David tossing rocks at an A.I. Goliath—even if Bores actively resists that label.
Toward the end of our conversation, I asked him about a recent episode from the final season of Hacks, in which the two leads—who don’t share politics—unite to tell an A.I. entrepreneur to [buzz] off when he wants to use their content. The episode’s signature moment comes in a soliloquy from Gen Z hero Ava Daniels, in which she rips into the idea that A.I. is inevitable and talks about how we can and should fight it. (Forgive me, for I’m slightly oversimplifying things here.)
I asked Bores what he thought of it, and he said the premise was flawed, saying it’s the framing desired by the groups that want to sink his candidacy.
“They want there to be a framing of: You’re pro-A.I. or you’re anti-A.I., or: You’re tilting at windmills. Again, that’s not where most Americans are or where this debate is,” Bores said, adding that “80 percent of Americans are seeing some benefits from A.I.,” but they are also “worried about what it means for their kids—if chatbots they’re engaging with or toys they’re engaging with are safe.”
“So the terms of the debate are not: Is A.I. here to stay? Yes of course. It’s how do we shape it, how do we influence it? How do we set rules of the road so that we all end up benefiting from it and not just have those rules set by five Silicon Valley billionaires?”
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