OpenAI的首席全球事务官员克里斯·莱哈内(Chris Lehane)认为2028年总统选举可能是AI的决定性时刻。 而他想要政治家们开始制定解决美国人对科技担忧的政策，而不是简单地对反AI情绪和对数据中心的反弹表态。
在一篇新的论文中，莱哈内将AI重塑经济的潜力比作富兰克林·D·罗斯福总统的新政，20世纪30年代在工业化和大萧条之后颁布的一套联邦计划和改革打破了旧的经济秩序。 他注意到，今天的美国人同样对失去对其经济前途的控制感到焦虑，并敦促政治家们寻找一条 " 强制的第三条道路 "，使人们能够分享AI的利益。 他提出了五个政策优先事项，涉及工人保护以及AI安全和数据中心发展的教育。
这篇文章是在民主党在中期选举中取得惊人的胜利之后发表的，民主党在选民对生活费用普遍感到沮丧的情况下推翻了对国会的控制。 领导AI Now Institute的AI和企业权力政策的凯特·布伦南(Kate Brennan)告诉TechCrunch，莱哈内的言论标志着去年OpenAI政策议程的显著转变，该议程专注于加速AI的发展，减少监管障碍，扩大基础设施。
毫不奇怪，莱哈内的许多提议会鼓励更广泛地采用AI，并支持OpenAI等基础设施扩张公司需要成长。 最初的新政确立了对工人的保护，并对公司权力施加了限制。 Lehane的愿景如何让AI公司对其技术可能造成的经济混乱负责，这一点并不明确。
Brennan 称引用“新政”的比喻是利用国家能力实际造福公众。 “这是一家私营公司所写的，该公司试图为其自身的利益倡导政策。 它充其量是历史性的，最坏的情况是有害的。”
虽然AI不是期中议题，而莱哈恩或许是对的，即在未来两年里AI会成为对话的更大部分。
在美国应对通货膨胀、关税和不断上涨的生活费用时，经济承受能力已经成为2028年大选的关键问题。 由于选民强调数据中心会徒步支付电费、AI更换工作、科技收益只流向少数富裕公司
Lehane承认许多这些关切，但他几乎没有提出具体的建议来阻止AI的收益集中。 相反，他基本上把AI当作一条让愿意接受它的美国人更加繁荣的道路。
采纳他关于税法的建议。 他建议鼓励工人学习人工智能技能，使企业家更容易获得资本，并对雇员所有权和利润分享采取新办法。 这与确保工人分享AI创造的财富或公司支付解雇工人费用的约束性要求不同。
”Brennan 称。 “我对这项政策对于一个已经建立在大规模人工智能收养和人工智能造福社会基础之上的未来，“所有这一切都是建立在从大赦国际的颠倒中受益的基础上的。
Brennan 称将更有意义地看到一些事情，比如对雇用人员而不是使工作自动化实行公司税率或税收奖励，以及阻止公司积聚超规模市场力量的方法。
Lehane强调扩大AI的经济机会，他对数据中心表示关注，同时强调这些中心可以创造的建筑工作和地方税收。 他当时的警告认为支持暂停数据中心的政客可能危及美国在中国的领先地位，甚至将这一立场与2002年授权伊拉克战争的投票相比较。
Lehane还使儿童安全和教育成为他拟议议程的中心，强调在青少年的AI同伴周围提供适龄保护和保障的重要性。 他反对让AI离开教室，但这一论点理所当然地认为，大赦国际改进了学习，这一主张仍未得到证实，一位批评者说，比起人类教师的更多资助或个人化关注，值得更多的审查。
Lehane也呼吁实施AI安全标准、独立评价、公共监督以及限制AI系统或使用杀机开关关闭系统的能力
Brennan称这些立场是 " 虚假的 "，指出OpenAI反对旨在强制实施此类措施的立法的历史。 例如，在2024年，OpenAI反对加州的AI安全法案SB 1047，该法案会授权灾难性风险评估和关闭能力。 去年，OpenAI还试图限制州监管，认为州会破坏美国的创新。 该公司最近转移了其中一些职位，支持了若干州安全法，并说该公司将向嵌入公司的独立评价员开放。
Lehane还主张，人们应该保持对使用AI作出的相应决定的控制，而不是将判断权完全交给机器。 人类在教育、工作、医疗和政府中越来越多地被要求使用AI。
在他的整篇论文中，莱哈内将AI设定为一种可以让美国人恢复其代理意识和经济机会的技术。 但他将美国普通“中产阶级”的成功与参与日益由OpenAI等公司塑造的经济联系起来。 他的政策是有意义地重新分配权力，还是巧妙地巩固权力，这一点不太明确。
TechCrunch联系到OpenAI，要求更具体地了解莱哈内的建议和公司的立场，但到出版时并没有回应。
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OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane thinks the 2028 presidential election could be a defining moment for AI. And he wants politicians to start developing policies that address Americans’ concerns about the technology, rather than simply paying lip service to anti-AI sentiment and the backlash against data centers.
In a new essay, Lehane compares AI’s potential to reshape the economy to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the 1930s set of federal programs and reforms enacted after industrialization and the Great Depression shattered the old economic order. He observes that Americans today feel similarly anxious about losing control over their economic futures and urges politicians to find a “compelling third path” that allows people to share in AI’s benefits. He lays out five policy priorities, spanning worker protections and education to AI safety and data center development.
The essay comes on the heels of a stunning Democratic victory in the midterm elections, in which Democrats flipped control of Congress amid widespread voter frustration over the cost of living. Kate Brennan, who leads AI and corporate power policy at the AI Now Institute, told TechCrunch that Lehane’s rhetoric marks a notable shift from OpenAI’s policy agenda last year, which focused on accelerating AI development, reducing regulatory barriers, and expanding infrastructure.
Unsurprisingly, many of Lehane’s proposals would encourage wider AI adoption and support the infrastructure expansion companies like OpenAI need to grow. The original New Deal established protections for workers and placed constraints on corporate power. It’s less clear how Lehane’s vision would hold AI companies accountable for the economic disruption their technology could create.
“Invoking a New Deal metaphor is to invoke state capacity to actually benefit the public,” Brennan said. “This is written by a private company that is trying to advocate for policies for its own benefit. It is ahistorical at best and harmful at worst.”
While AI wasn’t a dominant issue in the midterms, opposition to data centers emerged as a major bipartisan concern in several races in the midterms. And Lehane may be right that AI will become a bigger part of the conversation over the next two years.
Affordability is already shaping up as a key issue for the 2028 election as Americans grapple with inflation, tariffs, and the rising cost of living. AI could become an increasingly large part of that conversation as voters stress about data centers hiking up electricity bills, AI replacing their jobs, and technology’s economic gains flowing only to a handful of wealthy companies.
Lehane acknowledges many of these concerns, but he offers few concrete proposals to prevent AI’s gains from becoming concentrated. Instead, he largely pitches AI as a path to greater prosperity for Americans willing to embrace it.
Take his proposals for the tax code. He suggests incentives for workers to learn AI skills, easier capital access for entrepreneurs, and new approaches to employee ownership and profit-sharing. Those are not the same as binding requirements that would ensure workers share in AI-generated wealth or that companies pay the costs of displacing workers.
“I was struck by how much of this policy is for a future…that is already predicated on mass AI adoption and AI benefiting society, which we have yet to see,” Brennan said. “All of it is predicated on benefiting from AI’s upside.”
Brennan said it would make more sense to see things like a revised corporate tax rate or tax incentives for hiring human beings rather than automating jobs, as well as ways to keep companies from amassing outsize market power.
Lehane’s emphasis on expanding AI’s economic opportunities, rather than limiting potential harms, extends to data centers. He notes concerns about data centers while emphasizing the construction jobs and local tax revenue they could generate. He then warns that politicians who support a data center moratorium could jeopardize America’s lead over China, going so far as to compare that stance to the 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq war.
Lehane also makes child safety and education central to his proposed agenda, stressing the importance of age-appropriate protections and safeguards around AI companions for minors. He also warns against keeping AI out of classrooms, arguing that doing so could lead to inequality between wealthy students and “children in rural communities.” But the argument takes for granted that AI improves learning, a claim that remains unproven and one critics say deserves more examination than more funding or individualized attention from human teachers.
Lehane also calls for enforceable AI safety standards, independent evaluations, public oversight, and the ability to restrict AI systems or use a kill switch to shut them down — though recent studies show that OpenAI and other AI labs haven’t published comprehensive plans for what they would do if a model escaped human control.
Brennan called these stances “disingenuous,” pointing to OpenAI’s history of opposing legislation designed to impose such measures. In 2024, for example, OpenAI opposed California’s AI safety bill, SB 1047, which would have mandated catastrophic risk evaluations and shutdown capabilities. Last year, OpenAI also sought to limit state regulation, arguing that states could undermine American innovation. The company has more recently shifted some of those positions, backing several state safety laws and saying it would be open to independent evaluators embedded in the company.
Lehane also argues that people should maintain control over consequential decisions made using AI, rather than handing off judgment entirely to machines. But that raises the question of what human control really looks like in a society where humans are increasingly being required to use AI in education, work, healthcare, and government.
Throughout his essay, Lehane frames AI as a technology that could give Americans back their sense of agency and economic opportunity. But he ties average Americans’ “middle class” success to participation in an economy increasingly shaped by companies like OpenAI. Whether his policies will meaningfully redistribute power or subtly entrench it is less clear.
TechCrunch reached out to OpenAI for more specifics on Lehane’s proposals and the company’s stances, but it did not respond by the time of publication.
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