I saw this and I agree with your main points. I will be offline for a bit due to travel, but I am happy to have a longer conversation with more nuanced responses.
Policy teams at private companies are more well-resourced while, as you mentioned, working on issues ranging from antitrust to privacy and child protection. I may be wrong, but I think the teams focused specifically on frontier AI (excluding infrastructure work) seem to be more balanced than the provided numbers suggest. This observation may be outdated, especially since SB-1047. You likely have a better idea of the current landscape than I do, and I’ll defer to your assessment.
Regarding “conflict framing”—I should have phrased this differently. I did not mean the policy conflicts which come up when a new or potentially consequential industry is facing government intervention. I meant a situation when groups and individuals become entrenched in direct conflict on almost all issues, regardless of the consequence. A recent non-AI example would be the philanthropically funded anti-fossil fuel advocates fighting carbon capture projects despite the IRA funding and general support from climate change-focused groups. The conflict has moved beyond specific policy proposals or even climate goals and has become a purity test that seems impossible to overcome through negotiation. This is a situation that I would not want to see, and I am glad it is not the case here.
Your distinction is important. Once disagreements evolve into purity tests, people stop evaluating ideas on their merits and start treating compromise as disloyalty. It’s interesting how that mindset shows up far beyond policy debates too. The phrase itself has taken on a broader cultural meaning over time: https://ricepuritytesthq.com/. The challenge is preserving room for nuance before every disagreement becomes an identity marker.
I saw this and I agree with your main points. I will be offline for a bit due to travel, but I am happy to have a longer conversation with more nuanced responses.
Policy teams at private companies are more well-resourced while, as you mentioned, working on issues ranging from antitrust to privacy and child protection. I may be wrong, but I think the teams focused specifically on frontier AI (excluding infrastructure work) seem to be more balanced than the provided numbers suggest. This observation may be outdated, especially since SB-1047. You likely have a better idea of the current landscape than I do, and I’ll defer to your assessment.
Regarding “conflict framing”—I should have phrased this differently. I did not mean the policy conflicts which come up when a new or potentially consequential industry is facing government intervention. I meant a situation when groups and individuals become entrenched in direct conflict on almost all issues, regardless of the consequence. A recent non-AI example would be the philanthropically funded anti-fossil fuel advocates fighting carbon capture projects despite the IRA funding and general support from climate change-focused groups. The conflict has moved beyond specific policy proposals or even climate goals and has become a purity test that seems impossible to overcome through negotiation. This is a situation that I would not want to see, and I am glad it is not the case here.
Your distinction is important. Once disagreements evolve into purity tests, people stop evaluating ideas on their merits and start treating compromise as disloyalty. It’s interesting how that mindset shows up far beyond policy debates too. The phrase itself has taken on a broader cultural meaning over time: https://ricepuritytesthq.com/. The challenge is preserving room for nuance before every disagreement becomes an identity marker.
OK, let me know when you’re back, and I’ll be happy to chat more! You can also email me at jason@aipolicy.us if you like.