OpenAI pushes policy agenda as AI emerges in 2028 election debate

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OpenAI and AI in 2028 election

Highlights

OpenAI's Jim Lehane advocates a five-point policy blueprint tying AI to economic anxiety, proposing incentives for AI skill-building, entrepreneurship, and profit-sharing but avoiding mandates on corporate wealth sharing or job-displacement costs.
Critics, including the AI Now Institute, question the adequacy of OpenAI's policy platform, highlighting concerns over public accountability, benefit assumptions, and a lack of binding measures such as revised tax rates or hiring incentives.
Lehane supports enforceable AI safety standards, public oversight, and contingency planning for loss-of-control scenarios, yet critics cite OpenAI's previous opposition to California’s SB 1047 and note the absence of comprehensive safety disclosures.

Policy blueprint ties AI to economic anxiety

As first reported by TechCrunch, Lehane sets out the case in a new essay that compares AI’s economic potential with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and calls for a "compelling third path" between resistance to the technology and uncritical adoption.

He says Americans are increasingly anxious about losing control over their economic futures and outlines five policy priorities, including worker protections, education, AI safety and data center development. The essay follows a Democratic midterm victory driven in part by voter frustration over living costs, a backdrop that could make AI’s impact on jobs, energy bills and economic opportunity more politically salient over the next two years.

Lehane presents AI as a route to broader prosperity, including tax incentives for workers to build AI skills, easier capital access for entrepreneurs and new approaches to employee ownership and profit-sharing. But the proposals stop short of binding measures that would require companies to share AI-generated wealth with workers or absorb the costs of job displacement.

Critics question accountability and public benefit

Kate Brennan, who leads AI and corporate power policy at the AI Now Institute, tells TechCrunch that Lehane’s rhetoric marks a shift from OpenAI’s earlier policy emphasis on accelerating AI development, reducing regulatory barriers and expanding infrastructure. She argues that invoking a New Deal analogy raises expectations of public accountability that a private company’s policy platform may not meet.

Brennan says the agenda assumes mass AI adoption will benefit society before that outcome is proven. She points instead to options such as revised corporate tax rates, incentives for hiring human workers and safeguards against excessive market concentration.

That tension also extends to data centers, where Lehane highlights construction jobs and local tax revenue while warning that moratoriums could weaken the U.S. position against China. He also backs enforceable AI safety standards, independent evaluations, public oversight and the ability to restrict or shut down AI systems, although critics point to OpenAI’s past opposition to legislation such as California’s SB 1047 and note that major AI labs have yet to publish comprehensive contingency plans for loss-of-control scenarios.

Lehane further argues that humans should retain control over consequential AI-assisted decisions in education, work, health care and government. OpenAI did not respond to questions seeking more detail on the proposals before publication.

We previously reported on the mounting headwinds facing the U.S. AI data center boom, including rising financing costs, construction delays, and limits on available power. That piece highlighted that only a fraction of planned projects are viewed as credible, as developers contend with tighter capital, cost overruns, and growing local pushback that could slow the expansion of computing capacity.

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