AI Summary
5 min readThe Super PAC Trying to Make an Example of Alex Bores
A super PAC called Leading the Future has already spent $2.5 million attacking Alex Bores, a New York State Assembly member running for Congress in Manhattan's 12th district. The ads claim Bores "made hundreds of thousands of dollars building and selling the tech for ICE, enabling ICE, and powering their deportations while making bank." The problem? Bores actually left Palantir in 2019 precisely because the company refused to stop ICE from using its software for deportations. The real story is who funds the attacks: co-founders of OpenAI, Andreessen Horowitz, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. They are not upset about Bores's past work for Palantir—they are terrified of what he did next.
The RAISE Act and Why It Scares Silicon Valley
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:01) **The Attack on Alex Bores and the Super PAC Behind It** - Ezra Klein introduces the mystery: why is a Super PAC funded by Palantir and OpenAI co-founders attacking a candidate for his past work at Palantir?
- 2 (04:40) **Bores's Origin Story: From Picket Lines to Cornell** - Bores traces his political awakening to his father's union fight against Disney, which taught him the power of collective action.
- 3 (06:30) **Bridging Labor Relations and Computer Science** - Bores explains how his dual degrees in Industrial Labor Relations and Computer Science merged into a philosophy of expanding government capacity.
- 4 (10:20) **Why a Young Radical Joined Palantir** - Bores explains that in 2014, Palantir’s mission of expanding government capacity while protecting civil liberties felt like a natural fit for a Democrat who believed government could be a force for good.
- 5 (14:50) **Navigating the Trump Era at Palantir** - Bores describes how the DOJ's priorities shifted under Trump, and how he drew a line on immigration work, but the company as a whole did not.
- 6 (18:30) **The Real Reason Bores Left Palantir** - Bores states he quit because Palantir refused to write guardrails into a contract with ICE to prevent its use for deportations, countering a Bloomberg story that claimed he left due to a harassment complaint.
- 7 (23:48) **The Philosophy Behind the RAISE Act** - Bores explains that the RAISE Act was a response to industry warnings about AI risk and the lack of federal regulation, aiming to establish a baseline safety standard.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Leading the Future, a super PAC whose funders include the founders of companies like Palantir and OpenAI, is spending millions of dollars this election cycle, and a considerable amount of that money is going toward attack ads against Alex Bores – even though Bores himself used to work for Palantir.
Bores is a New York state assemblyman who is running for Congress to represent New York’s 12th District. His campaign includes an extensive A.I. policy platform, including demands for A.I. companies to be more transparent about safety, and an idea for an “A.I. dividend” that would redistribute some of the profits of A.I. companies to the public. So his race has turned into a central battleground over the future of the A.I. industry and who has the power to shape it.
In this conversation, we discuss how Bores went from working for Palantir to running a campaign that would regulate the A.I. industry, the major issues he thinks A.I. policy needs to address, and his response to the attacks against him.
Mentioned:
Give People Money by Annie Lowrey
“Alex Bores’ AI Policy Framework For Congress”
“NY Congressional Candidate Faced Palantir Sexual Comments Claim” by Laura Nahmias
“AI populism’s warning shots” by Jasmine Sun
Book Recommendations:
A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
World Eaters by Catherine Bracy
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
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You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recom
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