How To Actually Regulate AI — ft. Alex Bores

Prof G Markets

In this episode, Scott Galloway and Ed Elson host Alex Bores to discuss the intensifying battle over AI regulation. The conversation covers

Key takeaways

• Alex Bores co-founded Who Decides to promote a democratic approach to AI development.
• A super PAC funded by Andreessen Horowitz and Greg Brockman spent millions on attack ads targeting Bores during his campaign.

Main topics

• AI Safety Regulation
• Political Accountability

Notable quotes

We can't leave those decisions up to five Silicon Valley billionaires.

Conclusion

Effective AI governance requires moving beyond self-regulation toward

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Support for the show comes from Alumni Ventures. We've said it before, diversification is our Kevlar vest. But do you know how concentrated your public stock fund actually is? A handful of mega cap stocks with an AI story are doing most of the work. That's not the diversification you think, especially when so much value creation is happening before companies ever go public. Alumni Ventures, ranked a top 20 U.S. venture firm by both Time and CB Insights, gives accredited investors a smart, simple way to assemble a blue-chip venture portfolio and participate in the value creation that is occurring in private markets. You can sign up for free, see the weekly deal flow, and decide for yourself. Or write one check into the Alumni Ventures Foundation fund for a diversified portfolio of about 25 private venture deals. Go to av.vc.gov. Speaker 6 (0:47) Not an offer to sell securities. Venture capital involves substantial risk, including loss of capital invested. See disclosures and fund offering materials for more information. Speaker 6 (0:56) Hey, it's me, Will Anderson, host of the new Music History Podcast, Monday Music Club. And on this week's episode, we're talking about pop music with the boys from one of my favorite podcasts, Switched on Pop. Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan are two of the smartest and sharpest minds chatting about music right now. And we got into how they got their start, what they love about pop music, and some recommendations on what we should be listening to. It's a great conversation. These guys are just... brilliant and you can find it by searching for Monday Music Club wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (1:27) Hey, it's Sue Bird. This week on Bird's Eye View, I'm joined by Jessica Shepard of the Dallas Wings. Jess and I get into how playing overseas helped her rediscover her love of basketball, why Paige Beckers is one of the best teammates she's ever had, and what the Wings need to do to find success in the playoffs. Plus, in Sue's View, I share my thoughts on the 2026 WNBA Awards race, including the contest for MVP between this season's frontrunners Asia Wilson, Kelsey Mitchell, and yes, rookie Olivia Miles. Check out this week's Bird's Eye View on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (2:00) Today's number, $27 billion. That's how much Mark Zuckerberg's net worth increased Monday. Ed, you know how Instagram models get paid. How's that? Per diem. Per diem? Yeah, you should call yourself an Instagram influencer because it just sounds better than unemployed. Speaker 4 (2:29) How Speaker 3 (2:30) are you? I'm good. I'm in New York. I'm headed to Colorado tomorrow. And then I go to Santa Barbara on Friday for a speaking gig. And then I go back to Colorado for a conference. And then, I don't know. I'm doing pretty well, though. It's great to be in New York. This is a golden age, Ed. You're living in a golden age. You don't realize it because you're young and you're used to everything being great despite the mass extinction possibilities. New York's amazing. You think this is Speaker 1 (2:57) the golden age of New York? Speaker 3 (2:58) I think in 20, you never realize you're in a golden age when you're in it. I think in 20 years, we're going to look back on Manhattan and think that was a golden age. Wow. Why now? The crush of humanity, the creativity, the number of new restaurants, new things to do. You think that's new? I Speaker 1 (3:14) feel like New York's been that. I feel like the main change is that we're a lot more like sweet greens and cover restaurants and like slop bowls. Speaker 3 (3:25) Well, just one crime. When I first moved to New York right out of UCLA, you'd go downtown and if you're with a woman, you walked her to a cab. You did not take the subway at night when I moved here. If you were in Manhattan for longer than a year, at some point you probably got, I mean, it was just an entirely different situation. There weren't nearly, every neighborhood in Manhattan now is kind of cool and has interesting vibe to it. 65 million people visited New York, 85 million in economic activity, 400,000 jobs. There's more people attended Broadway last year than all local sports teams combined. We've had net job creation since 2020 of 1.1 million jobs. Granted, most of that has been health care. But it used to be 54 % of the GDP of New York State. Now it's 60%. I mean, this is a golden age. Are you running for mayor? I am not. I am not. I am neither talented nor likable nor very good on social, so I don't qualify. But New York is. Speaker 3 (4:32) I mean, I didn't appreciate it when I was your age, but you're living, you're literally living at the helm of the bobsled of a capitalist society right now living in New York. And I mean, there's always a but. Inflation's at 4.6 % versus 3.4 % nationally. Rents are up. So it's kind of indicative or a metaphor for the larger economy. And that is, if you're in the right place at the right time and have the right job. you're just living an amazing life. If you're the kind of person that actually has to show up for jury duty, all you know is your rent's going up. So it's, you know, it's more difficult. The city used to be a place where you could be upper middle class safely and dance between the raindrops and live here. I don't think that's... I don't think that's any, that's longer any true. I think either you have a great job that pays really well, or your parents are putting you through New York. I just couldn't, I was making a really good living here. And in 2010, I decided to move to Florida because I just couldn't afford to live here with kids. But anyways, it's, it's, it's doing really well. What did you, oh, wait, you had weddings this weekend. Speaker 1 (5:36) I had an engagement party, which is very fun. I had a wedding the weekend before that. And then this weekend will be. one of my first wedding-free weekends in a long time. So I will be chilling at home and enjoying New York and embracing the golden age. So not much on the agenda for me, which is great. I needed a chill weekend. You Speaker 3 (5:58) should practice being married and be home with your girlfriend and scream, I am not made of money. And then... Speaker 3 (6:05) To have her tell you how much she doesn't like your parents. Just practice this weekend. Speaker 1 (6:10) Okay. Just Speaker 3 (6:11) practice. Practice being married. We'll Speaker 1 (6:13) do a little bit. We'll do a little bit of role play. Okay. Speaker 5 (6:16) Well, with that, let's get into this conversation. There is growing anxiety about the potential risks of AI. Researchers and AI leaders have warned about everything from cyber attacks to biological weapons. And at the same time, policymakers are still trying to figure out how governments should respond to a technology that is advancing faster than the laws designed to regulate it. Our next guest has been thinking about that problem for years. In fact, he is one of the few lawmakers who has actually helped turn AI safety concerns into law. In 2025, he sponsored New York's RAISE Act, which requires large developers of frontier AI models to establish and disclose safety and security protocols. That law was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul in December. But that legislation also put a target on his back. When he ran in the Democratic primary for Manhattan's open house seat, he made AI policy a central part of his campaign. As a result, a super PAC spent $8 million on attack ads. targeting him. Now he is embarking on a new venture aimed at shaping how democratic presidential candidates and voters think about AI. We're going to talk to him about how he thinks AI should be regulated and what role the government should play as the technology advances. This is our conversation with Alex Bors, the co-founder of Who Decides. Alex, great to have you on the show. We're going to get into... Speaker 1 (7:43) Everything that's been discussed about AI and AI safety, this debate has really blown up around the world. But I think it might be helpful to start with where you Speaker 5 (7:52) sit in all of this. You've been thinking about this stuff for a while. How did you get to this position where you're now running this nonprofit focusing on specifically these issues? What is your background? Thanks Speaker 8 (8:03) for having me, mate. Background is pretty atypical for someone in politics. I spent my whole career in tech, mostly government tech. I was at Palantir for four and a half years and then a couple of startups after that. And when my seat in the state assembly opened up, I ran for it mostly as an experiment to see if. that were a way of making change. You know, I was always talking about how I was trying to fix bad policy downstream with tech, and here was a chance to go upstream and try to design it right in the first place. And I ran, I won, and have worked on a wide variety of issues there. When I was elected, I became the first in my party, the first Democrat elected in New York State at any level with a degree in computer science. But that wasn't all. that I worked on. I've passed 35 bills in my four years. I think maybe five of them had to do with AI and technology. But one of those in particular, the RAISE Act, really got the ire of the industry and I think set everything else in motion. Speaker 1 (9:06) At what point did you realize or decide that AI was a significant issue? And why did you decide to make it the central component of your campaign, which you didn't win, but you came? Second, I think you've had a pretty surprisingly good run considering some of the other candidates and their public profiles. So when did AI become central to your understanding of policymaking? Speaker 8 (9:34) In terms of a policy... important policy question. I knew it for quite a while. The speed with which this was coming was evident. Chachi PT was released basically a week after Election Day and sort of dominated a lot of conversations throughout my entire time in the assembly. But I actually wasn't planning to make it a big part of the as a political issue, a big part of the campaign. That was sort of thrust upon me. You know, my theory going in was, well, I've passed the strongest AI safety law in the country. I have a master's in computer science. If AI is your issue, you're going to vote for me. So I'm going to go into this campaign and talk about everything else. But three weeks after I declared. Leading the Future, the super PAC funded by Andreessen Horowitz and Greg Brockman of OpenAI, named me their number one target in the country. And a couple weeks after that, pledged to spend at least $10 million against me and started to do it. And so my neighbors were getting mailers once a week with something about... you know, some made-up thing about me. And they were getting text messages every day. And so voters are coming up and asking me of, hey, who's spending so much money against you? Why are they spending so much against you? And that actually elevated AI in our race, I think, a few months before, now that it's elevated everywhere Speaker 1 (10:57) nationally. So this super PAC, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and also by Greg Brockman of OpenAI, they spent nearly $8 million to beat you. This was after... My understanding is this was after the RAISE Act was passed, which you helped to author and which specifically addressed AI. Why were they so worried about you? What was it about your proposal and your regulation? What was it about the RAISE Act that made them decide, OK, we need to spend millions of dollars to make sure this guy doesn't touch the office? It's a great question because now. Speaker 8 (11:32) They say they support the RAISE Act. And Chris Lehane from OpenAI put out a blog post that said he's always supported the RAISE Act, which was news to me and anyone else who was involved in passing it. But I think the broader point was they wanted to send a message that no one should try to regulate AI. Right. In politics, there's super PACs have existed for quite some time. If you want to bury someone, you just don't announce it. Spend all your money the last three weeks of the campaign and then let it come out later. Why that is. What they did was they announced it eight months ahead of time. They announced the amount and they said they wanted to do it because I wanted to regulate AI, which is a incredibly popular stance. So all of those tactics suggest it wasn't. just about beating me. It was about sending a message to every other legislator that maybe you'll talk about AI, maybe you'll say something about AI, but the people that actually pass bills that regulate AI at all, we will remember Speaker 1 (12:29) and we will bury you. Which seems a little bit confusing because we're now in a situation where a lot of these companies are asking for regulation, begging regulators to do something. Meanwhile, you've got the president saying, no. We're not going to worry about that. I can't really tell whose side anyone is on or what people actually want. I guess this has really flared up in the past two weeks. What is your reaction? What do you make of the fact that after spending all this money for no regulation, now they're asking for regulation? Speaker 8 (13:05) Many people with different motivations here. I think there are some who have sincerely always wanted there to be regulation and been afraid of it and are being consistent and are afraid of AI and are being consistent in asking for there to be some guardrails. I think there's others that seeing what happened with the Hugging Face attack and many other attacks as well over the summer have started to change their mind. And maybe they think. AI has advanced far enough that now is the time for government to come in, even if they didn't believe that before. I think there's some marketing that's happening, of course, where the marketing departments are always going to spin everything. And it's easy to say, oh, this is so powerful. And some are jumping in and doing that. And then others are noticing the momentum towards regulation and just trying to spin it towards their own. means. So this is most obvious with Leading the Future and their subsidiary Build American AI, who are the ones who spent against me, Leading the Future, and fought for no regulation whatsoever. In the last two weeks, they've started retweeting every lawmaker who said, we need to pass something this year. Now, that's confusing. If they exist to shut down regulation, why are they suddenly saying regulate us this year? Well, it's because the only proposals that seem to have a chance of passing this year are the ones that would also preempt states from taking any action next year. And so they're realizing, oh, the states are going to be really active next year. Everyone is riled up against this. Let's quickly jump on the bandwagon of wanting something at the federal level to stave off what might be coming at the state level next year. If Speaker 3 (14:40) the government... wanted to put together or start regulating AI, what are some basic starting points for starting to put some guardrails around this technology? I'll Speaker 8 (14:53) limit comments to just sort of catastrophic risk and AI safety that we're talking about here, because there's a whole slew of AI issues that need to be addressed around deepfakes and chatbots and a lot of things that you need to do. But for what's been in the news recently, you could... require third-party audits of all of the frontier labs, ideally with employee-level access where outside evaluators are sitting side by side. You could require monitoring of every AI deployment. One of the big things in the Hugging Face hack was at the time, OpenAI was monitoring their training and monitoring their usage, but not monitoring their evaluations. And that's how it got out of control so quickly. They've since changed that, but that should probably be required everywhere. should require retention of logs, not necessarily by OpenAI or Anthropic. There can be places where the customer can't share that log data, but then the customer shouldn't be deleting it. We should be able to go back and see any past actions in the AI itself so that we can learn from it. And there should be mandatory reporting of safety incidents, including