According to The Verge, a coalition called the AI Alliance spent between $17,000 and $25,000 on a Meta ad campaign from November 23 against New York’s RAISE Act, potentially reaching over two million people. The ads argued the bill would “stifle job growth” and hurt the state’s tech ecosystem. Governor Kathy Hochul just signed a rewritten version of the bill, which removed a key clause requiring developers to prevent releases that could cause “critical harm,” like 100+ deaths or $1 billion in damages. The AI Alliance includes tech giants like Meta, IBM, and Intel, but also academic institutions like NYU, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Carnegie Mellon. The original, stricter bill had passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly in June, but the signed version also extended disclosure deadlines and lessened fines for safety incidents.
Why Universities Are In The Lobbying Game
Here’s the thing that really sticks out. It’s one thing for Meta or Google to lobby against regulation they find burdensome. That’s expected. But seeing a list of prestigious universities—NYU, Cornell, Dartmouth—listed as members of a group funding political attack ads? That’s a different look. When asked, none of the schools responded with a comment. That’s pretty telling.
So why are they in this alliance? Well, the lines between academia and industry in AI have been blurring for years. Look at the partnerships: Northeastern gives 50,000 people access to Anthropic’s Claude. OpenAI funded a journalism ethics initiative at NYU. A Carnegie Mellon professor sits on OpenAI’s board. These aren’t arms-length relationships anymore. When a company like Anthropic or OpenAI funds programs and provides free tech, the institutions become stakeholders in that company’s operational freedom. It’s hard to bite the hand that feeds your research (and your students’ resumes). The mission statement about “democratizing benefits” sounds noble, but the first major public action was killing a safety clause. That’s a choice.
What The Bill Lost (And Why It Matters)
The core change is huge. The original RAISE Act had a provision that basically said: don’t release a model if it could reasonably cause a catastrophe. We’re talking about preventing scenarios where an AI, acting with “no meaningful human intervention,” could lead to mass casualties or enable the creation of a WMD. The version Hochul signed strips that out entirely.
Now, you could argue that clause was vague or hard to enforce. Tech companies definitely did, calling it “unworkable.” But removing it changes the law’s character from “prevent harm” to “report harm after it happens.” The governor also gave companies more time to disclose safety incidents and reduced the potential fines. It’s a shift from proactive guardrails to post-incident transparency. In a field moving as fast as AI, that’s a major philosophical concession. The signing was bundled with other bills, quietly overshadowing this dilution.
The Broader Lobbying Playbook
This wasn’t a one-off. The AI Alliance has been busy. They’ve also lobbied against California’s SB 1047 and aspects of President Biden’s AI executive order. And they weren’t alone on the RAISE Act. A pro-AI super PAC called Leading the Future—backed by Perplexity AI, a16z, and OpenAI’s Greg Brockman—ran attack ads targeting the bill’s cosponsor, Assemblymember Alex Bores.
But the Alliance’s approach is more nuanced. They’re a nonprofit partnered with a trade association, and they wrap their advocacy in the language of open development and safety. They work on projects like cataloguing “trustworthy” datasets. It’s a smarter, more palatable strategy than just saying “no regulation.” By bringing universities onboard, they gain a sheen of academic credibility. It’s a powerful shield. When you question their lobbying, they can point to their member-driven working groups and research missions.
The New Political Reality For AI
What we’re seeing is the solidification of a full-spectrum lobbying front. You have the blunt super PACs running political attack ads, and you have these industry-academic coalitions applying softer, more credible pressure. The message is consistent: regulation stifles innovation and kills jobs. The narrative worked in New York.
For the tech companies, this is just business. For the universities, it’s more complicated. They’re trading some of their perceived independence for access, funding, and relevance in a gold-rush era. But when the next big AI safety bill comes up—and it will—will we see the same list of schools on a letter of “deep concern”? Probably. The alliances are set. The playbook is written. And after this win in New York, the lobbyists’ confidence is only going to grow. The fight over AI rules isn’t just happening in Congress; it’s happening in faculty lounges and partnership announcements, too.
