Grassroots Movement Forms Among Tech Workers Demanding Responsible AI Development

A grassroots movement is forming among everyday tech workers who are demanding their companies develop and deploy AI responsibly. And the Guardrails Alliance, a new super PAC dedicated to supporting AI legislation, aims to leverage that discontent.

Democratic operatives Shaunna Thomas and Leah Hunt-Hendrix launched the Guardrails Alliance on Thursday with backing from tech employees, labor unions, and other groups, according to The New York Times.

“Our fundamental belief here is that people still do have the power to stop this autocratic takeover of the Trump administration and the tech sector,” Thomas told the NYT.

Guardrails positions itself as a populist political movement that runs on small donations from people in the trenches of the AI boom. The PAC has about $5 million at its disposal today and plans to raise $15 million this cycle — small potatoes compared to deep-pocketed adversaries like Leading the Future, which has more than $100 million from tech leaders like OpenAI president Greg Brockman.

Guardrails will buy ads to support Alex Bores, a New York congressional candidate who became Leading the Future’s first target and is running in the primaries next week. On Thursday, Bores shared an ad featuring the parents of Adam Raine, the teenager who died by suicide after months of prolonged conversations with ChatGPT.

Bores is also receiving support from another pro-legislation super PAC, Public First Action, which has backing from Anthropic.

While OpenAI has tried to distance itself from Brockman’s donations, many employees are reportedly unconvinced, and several have voiced concerns on social media about Leading the Future’s attacks on Bores.

This year, tech workers have also mobilized to demand their chiefs end contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and urge the Pentagon to withdraw its designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk — a label critics say was imposed without due process in retaliation for Anthropic’s limits on its technology being used for mass surveillance and autonomous warfare.

“This is not about matching [Leading the Future] dollar for dollar,” Thomas said. “What this vehicle is meant to do is be a political home for people who are concerned about the way the anti-regulation AI tech sector is trying to manipulate elections.”

TechCrunch has reached out to the Guardrails Alliance.