It's not every day a tech company asks Washington for more rules. But according to an Axios scoop published Sunday, that's exactly what OpenAI plans to do right after Tuesday's midterm elections.
The push is being led by Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, and it's timed for the lame-duck session, the stretch after the election and before the new Congress takes over in January. The centrepiece is an idea OpenAI calls "mandatory speed limits" for the most powerful AI systems. The details are still fuzzy, and it's not yet clear whether this will become an actual bill. Lehane framed it simply: humans should always stay in control of this technology, and he says OpenAI will be talking about the concept more and more.
There's a second part, and it's about the fights happening in towns across the country. Data centres have become a real local issue, with people worried about power bills, water and noise. OpenAI wants to give them a friendlier name and argue they're a different kind of project that can change a local economy. It also plans to back state laws for "community compacts" that would give residents a real say in how these projects get built and what they get out of them. It points to a big project in Pike County, Ohio, as the model.
The timing is political. OpenAI reportedly expects Democrats to win the House, which would make Washington tougher for the industry, and Lehane thinks AI will be the issue of the 2028 presidential race. The team has apparently been working on this since August.
