Three months ago, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman told me: his concerns on a growing public relations crisis facing artificial intelligence companies: Despite the popularity of tools like ChatGPT, a growing share of the population has reported having a negative view of AI. Since then, the reaction has only intensified.
Back-to-school speakers are now to be booed to talk about AI in optimistic terms. Last month, someone launched a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s San Francisco home and wrote a manifesto advocating crimes against AI leaders. No one has more to lose in this reputation crisis than OpenAI.
The person charged with trying to solve this problem is Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s head of global affairs and a veteran political operative. I sat down with him this week to discuss what I see as his two biggest challenges yet: convincing the world to adopt OpenAI’s technology, while also persuading lawmakers to pass regulations that won’t hinder the company’s growth. Lehane views these goals as one and the same.
“When I was in the White House, we always said good policy meant good policy,” Lehane says. “You have to think about these two things evolving together.”
After working on crisis communications in Bill Clinton’s White House, Lehane gave himself the nickname “disaster master.” He then helped Airbnb fend off city regulators who viewed short-term home rentals as existing in a legal gray area or, as he puts it, “ahead of the law.” Lehane was also instrumental in the formation of Fairshake, a powerful crypto industry super PAC that worked to legitimize digital currencies in Washington. Since joining OpenAI in 2024, he has quickly become one of the company’s most influential executives and now oversees its communications and policy teams.
Lehane tells me that public narratives about how AI will change society are often “artificially binary.” On one side is the “Bob Ross worldview” which predicts a future in which no one has to work and everyone lives in “seaside houses painting watercolors all day.” On the other, a dystopian future in which AI has become so powerful that only a small group of elites have the ability to control it. According to Lehane, neither scenario is very realistic.
OpenAI is guilty of fostering this kind of polarizing discourse in the past. CEO Sam Altman warned last year that “entire categories of jobs” will disappear when the singularity arrives. More recently, he has softened his tone, declaring that “doom and gloom about employment is probably a mistake in the long run.”
Lehane wants OpenAI to start sending a more “calibrated” message about the promise of AI, avoiding either extreme. He says the company needs to offer real solutions to issues that worry people, such as potential large-scale job losses and the negative impacts of chatbots on children. As an example of this work, Lehane cited a list of the policy proposals that OpenAI recently published, which include creating a four-day work week, expanding access to healthcare, and passing a tax on AI-powered work.
“If you say there are challenges here, you also have an obligation – particularly if you’re building this sort of thing – to actually come up with ideas to solve those problems,” Lehane says.
Some former OpenAI employees, however, have accused the company of downplaying the potential downsides of AI adoption. WIRED previously reported that members of OpenAI’s economic research unit resigned after becoming concerned that this was not the case. transforming itself into a defense arm of the company. The former employees argued that their warnings about the economic impacts of AI might have been embarrassing for OpenAI, but they honestly reflected the company’s research findings.
Packaging punches
Faced with growing public skepticism about AI, politicians are under pressure to prove to voters that they can rein in tech companies. To combat this, the AI industry has created a new group of super PACs that support pro-AI political candidates and attempt to influence public opinion on technology. Critics say the move backfired and some candidates started campaigning on the fact that the AI super PACS are opposed to it.
Lehane helped create one of the largest pro-AI super PACs, Leading the Future, which launched last summer with more than $100 million in funding commitments from tech industry figures, including Brockman. The group has opposed Alex Boresthe author of New York’s toughest AI safety law, who is running for Congress in the state’s 12th District.
Brockman previously told WIRED that he and his wife’s political donations to Leading the Future, as well as President Trump’s Super PAC, were inspired by OpenAI’s mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity. Although he made the donations in his personal capacity, he said he believes the funding could help put pro-AI candidates in office who have similar goals.
Lehane tells me he has consulted with Brockman on his recent political spending, but only “in a very general way.” At another point in our conversations, he noted that Brockman was “really looking to prioritize good AI policy.”
Lehane says he is currently “not involved” in the day-to-day operations or decision-making of Leading the Future and has not shared feedback with the group on its efforts since its launch. Instead, he tried to “let them be their own external, independent thing.” He adds that OpenAI has repeatedly attempted to clarify, including in internal employee blog posts, that it does not directly fund any super PACs.
Political battles
Lehane compares OpenAI to companies that built fundamental utilities such as railroads and electricity. Although OpenAI has not yet proven that its products are as essential as these technologies, it is taking a big step forward and working hand in hand with the US government.
In the absence of any meaningful federal AI legislation, OpenAI is pursuing what Lehane calls “reverse federalism”: pressuring states to pass AI laws that essentially mirror each other. The goal is to “harmonize” the new bills with laws already on the books in California and New York and prevent lawmakers from creating a patchwork of different rules across the country, which Lehane said would derail innovation.
In practice, OpenAI has also advocated for policies that would grant even more respect to the AI industry. The company recently supported a bill in Illinois that would, among other things, AI labs avoid liability if their models cause catastrophic damageprovided that companies publish security frameworks on a public website. Tech industry groups have been pushing for AI liability safeguards for years, arguing that only bad actors — not model developers — should be held responsible if their products are used to commit crimes.
When the Illinois bill began to attract attention, its sponsor said it was “an OpenAI initiative.” But after being widely criticized, including by the governor of Illinois, OpenAI released a statement saying it had has never supported safe harbor liability arrangement.
In our interview, Lehane seemed to suggest that OpenAI’s general support for the legislation was an oversight. “I don’t think we were explicit at all about what we stood for and what we didn’t stand for,” Lehane says. “It was our fault.” When asked if OpenAI had a hand in drafting the bill, he said the company “certainly shares our thoughts,” although he said the ChatGPT creator simply wanted to advocate for AI laws similar to those in California and New York.
OpenAI recently came out in favor of a different bill in Illinois, which would be one of the strictest AI laws in the country, requiring major AI companies to have their security practices audited by external third parties. The legislation was also endorsed by OpenAI’s biggest rival, Anthropic, and passed the Illinois Senate on Thursday.
This is an edition of Maxwell Zeff Model Behavior Newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.