Politics Comes For American Ai Benton Institute For Broadband Society

The rapacious energy needs of data centers finally seem to have taken a political toll. In recent elections, candidates in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere ran—and won—on voters’ frustration with rising utility bills caused partly by America’s enormous AI buildout. This could have consequences for tech companies expanding in the U.S., which still need to build giant centers for their AI ambitions, but now find themselves on the wrong end of a political issue. But it also impacts America on the global stage. A nation where tech infrastructure is suddenly a bogeyman could find itself at a disadvantage—especially as global rivals race to fill the infrastructural gaps and expand their own AI economies. Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214 Wilmette, IL 60091

© 1994-2025 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved. As a growing number of public agencies look to implement tools and programs that rely on artificial intelligence (AI), elected officials and senior agency leadership have important roles to play in promoting the responsible... Effective governance and oversight of AI is critical for state and local governments to realize good value from their AI projects, increase efficiency, build and maintain public trust, avoid failed AI projects and public... House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said that a sect of Republicans is now “looking at other places” to potentially pass a federal measure that would block states from passing AI laws for a... Other Republicans opposed including the AI preemption in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

For months, President Trump has pressured the Republican-led Congress to block state AI laws that the president claims could bog down innovation as AI firms waste time and resources complying with a patchwork of... President Donald Trump has emerged as perhaps America’s most important cheerleader for artificial intelligence this year, releasing a milestone AI Action Plan over the summer and a flurry of executive orders to encourage the... AT&T has demanded a federal court order to halt T-Mobile's new "Easy Switch" tool, claiming that it uses AI bots to unlawfully access and scrape customer data. This report examines the Responsible AI ecosystem in 2025, highlighting the field’s most impactful resources and tracing its contributions toward developing concrete governance, assurance, and public-interest infrastructure to support the adoption of Responsible AI... Five key takeaways: Sen Mark Kelly (D-AZ) released AI for America, a new roadmap to make AI work for all Americans by making big AI companies part of the solution.

At the center of the plan is the AI Horizon Fund, a federal fund fueled by contributions from leading AI companies that would provide the resources needed to reinvest in workers, infrastructure, and responsible... This approach ensures that AI growth benefits Americans while sustaining innovation, creating a positive cycle that strengthens the foundations on which America’s AI lead is built. "Calling on AI companies to be good partners is just common sense. But while AI policy roadmaps are everywhere these days, few address the real question: How will the big ideas be funded and sustained over the long term? I propose a bold new solution—a fund, fueled by contributions from leading AI companies, designed to reinforce the very national strengths they need to continue thriving here in America." Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214 Wilmette, IL 60091

© 1994-2025 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved. Artificial intelligence is increasingly emerging as a key wedge issue — not between the major political parties, but within them. On the right, MAGA populists and influencers are warning about the potential hazards of unrestricted AI development as President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and their administration have pushed for minimal regulations in... On the left, progressives are fighting against potential AI-fueled job losses and a further consolidation of financial power by Big Tech as center-left Democrats weigh the unknown downsides of technological advancement with major investments... Potential 2028 presidential contenders — from Vance and Missouri Sen.

Josh Hawley on the right, to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the left — are all carving out unique lanes on the issue, creating some unusual bedfellows. Ocasio-Cortez is among the potential 2028 candidates who have highlighted growing concerns in recent weeks. Last month, she raised the potential for a market downturn fueled by what some are calling an AI bubble, warning at a congressional hearing of “2008-style threats to economic stability.” This report examines the Responsible AI ecosystem in 2025, highlighting the field’s most impactful resources and tracing its contributions toward developing concrete governance, assurance, and public-interest infrastructure to support the adoption of Responsible AI...

Five key takeaways: Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214 Wilmette, IL 60091 © 1994-2025 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved. OpenAI's policy proposals for extending America’s global leadership in artificial intelligence innovation, ensuring equitable access to AI, and driving economic growth across communities nationwide. As AI becomes more advanced, we believe America needs to act now to maximize the technology’s possibilities while minimizing its harms.

AI is too powerful to be led and shaped by autocrats, while the economic opportunity AI presents is too compelling to forfeit. As our CEO Sam Altman has written, AI will soon help our children do things we can’t. Not far off is a future in which everyone’s lives can be better than anyone’s life is now. With such prosperity in sight, we want to work with policymakers to ensure that AI’s benefits are shared responsibly and equitably. This blueprint is designed to support the entrepreneurship and individual freedoms that have long been at the heart of the American innovation ecosystem. If done right, the developers who are AI’s Main Street will thrive along with companies of all sizes, and the broad economic benefits of the technology will catalyze a reindustrialization across the country.

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214 Wilmette, IL 60091 © 1994-2025 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved. You’re reading the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society’s Weekly Digest, a recap of the biggest (or most overlooked) broadband stories of the week. The digest is delivered via e-mail each Friday. Round-Up for the Week of December 1-5, 2025

As of this week, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved final Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program proposals from 30 states and territories. With less than four weeks left in 2025, Democratic leadership from the House Commerce Committee sent a letter to NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth asking a number of questions about NTIA's progress on BEAD implementation,... Here's a bit of a recap of the last six months of BEAD changes that led up to the letter and concerns about squandering the $42 billion opportunity to connect everyone in America to... Here’s How NTIA is Changing the BEAD Program If you were relaxing on a beach on June 6, good for you—unless, of course, you are a state broadband officer. You may have missed NTIA's June 6 BEAD Restructuring Policy Notice, which ushered in a host of changes to BEAD Program rules.

NTIA's new rules instructed states to pick the cheapest technologies to deliver internet access and forced every state and territory to redo their subgrant programs in 90 days. The Policy Notice also eliminated BEAD requirements for fair labor practices, factoring in climate changes over the lifetime of networks, consumer protections, and measures to ensure these taxpayer-funded networks are affordable for potential subscribers. The last decade taught us painful lessons about how social media can reshape democracy: misinformation spreads faster than truth, online communities harden into echo chambers, and political divisions deepen as polarization grows. Now, another wave of technology is transforming how voters learn about elections—only faster, at scale, and with far less visibility. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, among others, are becoming the new vessels (and sometimes, arbiters) of political information. Our research suggests their influence is already rippling through our democracy.

LLMs are being adopted at a pace that makes social media uptake look slow. At the same time, traffic to traditional news and search sites has declined. As the 2026 midterms near, more than half of Americans now have access to AI, which can be used to gather information about candidates, issues, and elections. Meanwhile, researchers and firms are exploring the use of AI to simulate polling results or to understand how to synthesize voter opinions. These models may appear neutral—politically unbiased, and merely summarizing facts from different sources found in their training data or on the internet. At the same time, they operate as black boxes, designed and trained in ways users can’t see.

Researchers are actively trying to unravel the question of whose opinions LLMs reflect. Given their immense power, prevalence, and ability to “personalize” information, these models have the potential to shape what voters believe about candidates, issues, and elections as a whole. And we don’t yet know the extent of that influence. Tech-world insiders are getting more involved than ever in national politics this year—and it’s not just Elon Musk. But as the presidential election looms, there’s a major disconnect between American politics and Big Tech when it comes to their visions of America’s future. On the campaign trail, Vice President Kamala Harris talks about the risk of “more chaos,” incipient fascism and a quick, steep slide back to the gender politics of the 1950s.

Meanwhile, the retrograde cultural assumptions of former President Donald Trump’s platform were on full display at Madison Square Garden. Meanwhile in Silicon Valley, AI entrepreneurs promise a world where there’s little to be afraid of (except maybe overregulation) — and nostalgia is nothing but a brake on a future we should be ushering... The mismatch between the mindset driving tech—the engine of America’s prestige and global economic dominance—and the mindset driving American politics has never been sharper, and it’s upending technopolitics on the campaign trail. Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214 Wilmette, IL 60091 © 1994-2025 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society looks at Project 2025 and its plans for the FCC. I’ve included only the introduction here, the rest of the article details expectations… In January 2023, Spencer Chretien—a former Special Assistant to President Donald J. Trump and Associate Director of Presidential Personnel—introduced Project 2025, an effort organized by the Heritage Foundation “to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right.” At the time, some 45... One pillar of Project 2025 is Heritage’s 180-day Transition Playbook—called Mandate for Leadership—which includes a transition plan for each federal agency. Heritage warns that few appointments to federal independent regulatory agencies will be as important as the President’s selection of the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote the playbook chapter on the FCC. The chapter does not purport to set forth a comprehensive agenda for the FCC. Rather, it focuses on selected issue areas that may quickly rise to the attention of a new Administration. The four identified policy priorities are:

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