Will the AI industry face a reckoning after Election Day?

The AI industry has spent this midterm cycle pouring record sums into super PACs. Tech executives contributed hundreds of millions to elect friendly, deregulation-minded candidates, even as some of those execs publicly call for federal industry standards on AI.With the public souring on data centers, the massive donations felt like an exercise in terrible timing for the candidates who took the money — and extra clumsy on the donors' part, since Silicon Valley picked a side that most polls say is doomed to fail. And, if the polls are right, a newly empowered Congress could hand the industry the kind of oversight it never intended. Careful what you (publicly) wish for.AI's PR problem persistsWhile tech billionaires wrote unlimited checks, many voters in most legislative districts were just trying to survive. Those dollars had no clear messaging behind them. For example, Silicon Valley's multimillion-dollar midterm blitz imploded when elite tech PACs ran blanket campaigns, assuming struggling Rust Belt towns and rural farming communities cared about "open-source model parameters" rather than their own economic survival.The AI industry also spent millions trying to normalize itself through advertising, but the public doesn’t seem to be buying it. There's a bizarre dichotomy in public perception right now. The average person is perfectly happy to ask ChatGPT or Claude how to balance their checkbook, diagnose a weird ache in their knee, and, as I wrote about, ask AI who they should vote for.But zoom out to the bigger picture, and that same person may view the industry with immense anxiety. Half of U.S. adults say the increased use of AI in daily life makes them feel more concerned than excited, according to a 2025 survey. Mashable Light Speed Or, as my aunt succinctly warned, "It's going to kill us all." The best tech deal this week The Apple iPhone 18 Pro is free right now with T-Mobile Products available for purchase through affiliate links. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. You simply can't buy public trust with ads and super PAC money when your product's underlying infrastructure is driving up local electricity rates, straining regional power grids, and is perceived by some as a humanity eliminator.According to recent consumer polling, over half of surveyed voters actively oppose data center construction in their areas because of the burden on local resources. The industry spent big on candidates, but it completely lost the narrative.Big tech needs to focus on problem-solving, not skirting rulesThere is a better path. Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna told me in an interview that one of his hopes is to act as a bridge between the tech elite and the very real concerns of working-class districts. That's the mindset Silicon Valley needs to adopt, and it's really the only way to fix their current dilemma moving forward. Which raises the question: Where do we go from here? Experts and pundits are already buzzing with wild theories about how AI will be deployed on a massive scale in the 2028 presidential election. Further, over the next two years, deepfakes could break our information ecosystem, and generative tools could vanquish millions of white-collar and creative jobs.What's certain is that before pouring more record-breaking capital into future elections, AI billionaires must resolve their in-house liabilities, the existential fears about their technology, and the real-world resource strain from their data centers.For two years, tech executives have asked Washington for guardrails, preferably light ones written by friends. But you can't lobby for rules while bankrolling the people who'd rather not write any. If voters elect a less tech-friendly Congress, the industry may get the rules it asked for, just not the ones it wanted. This article represents the opinions of its writer.John Casey is a columnist at Raw Story, the Advocate, Daily Beast, and Outsports. He's also the author of Love: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality.