Axios interview: Chris Lehane on OpenAI's policy strategy for new Trump era
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Chris Lehane at the AI Action Summit in Paris this February. Photo: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images
OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told Axios in an interview this week that it's time to accelerate AI policy for the Trump era two years after ChatGPT exploded onto the scene.
Why it matters: For top AI companies, the policy message has shifted from begging for regulation and warning of dangers to projecting confidence about the policies needed to keep growing and beat China in the AI race.
- "There's a real focus from the administration on developing an AI strategy to ensure U.S. economic competitiveness and national security are prioritized," Lehane said. "Our work stream is intersecting with where the administration is going."
- Lehane said he was at the White House last week and has had many meetings with Trump administration officials about AI policy, and he expects a full strategy to be released by the summer.
The big picture: The White House is collecting comments on what its national AI strategy should be in what is amounting to a total reset of policy from the Biden administration.
- Lehane says the U.S. view on AI is shifting as the industry grows more comfortable and ambitious with the technology.
- "Globally, the conversation around AI has changed," said Lehane. "There's been a definite pivot. ... Maybe the biggest risk here is actually missing out on the opportunity. There was a pretty significant vibe shift when people became more aware and educated on this technology and what it means."
OpenAI's memo to the White House, seen early by Axios, focuses on a number of key things the company deems necessary for the U.S. to lead on AI with democratic values and stay ahead of China:
- pre-emption of state AI laws;
- balanced rules around what advanced AI technology can be exported abroad;
- allowing AI to learn from copyrighted material;
- infrastructure investments for AI growth; and
- government adoption of AI.
State laws on AI assume "AI is like social media," Lehane said, while the company believes it is more like electricity, a key underpinning of systems people use every day.
- A voluntary structure housed at a reimagined U.S. AI Safety Institute could test models as part of a public-private partnership in exchange for liability protection from dozens of state-level AI laws, which are creating uncertainty in the market, Lehane said.
- Export rules should be considered on a tiered basis to ensure there's a balance between protecting U.S. intellectual property and making sure it's in enough global markets, he said.
- OpenAI also hopes to see fair use copyright rules continuing to be applied to AI so models can be trained on as much information as possible, he said, calling copyright "a national security issue."
Flashback: In May 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared before Congress and asked for a heavy approach by Congress, including an AI licensing agency and independent audits.
The bottom line: For Lehane and OpenAI, fears about AI are dwindling, and the vibe shift is here to stay.
- "Companies like ours have gotten pretty comfortable with how we're deploying this stuff in a responsible way, and understand the real challenge here is to make sure this opportunity is realized."
