This article is part of a series. Bots and Votes: How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Elections Around the Worldprovided by Shine.
Everywhere you look, tech giants want to be seen as doing the right thing when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Meta and OpenAI published a lengthy treaty detailing how they plan to protect this year's global election cycle from harm. France's Mistral and the US's Inflection AI, newcomers to the coalition, advocated a “safety first” approach to emerging technologies. Legacy giant Amazon wanted everyone to know it was building its AI systems responsibly.
It's easy to get lost in all this policy jargon.
POLITICO tried to cut through the noise and identify the talking points of the big AI companies, many of which were being made on the front lines as company executives tried to convince lawmakers around the world that they could be trusted to fast-track AI innovation.
To do so, we have collected numerous AI-related public policy documents, technical specifications, and company terms of use from nine major Western artificial intelligence companies over the past two years, including statements from OpenAI, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft, as well as their smaller rivals Mistral, Aleph Alpha, Inflection AI, and Anthropic.
We then analyzed that data to measure the raw frequency of words that commonly appeared in these companies' AI-related statements over that time period, with the goal of figuring out the exact talking points that these companies repeated when the time came, and how they differed.
Not all companies make the same number of public statements, so we limited our data collection to at most the 100 most common words, edited the results to include two-word combinations (e.g., generative AI), and removed boilerplate language (e.g., company addresses) that could skew the results.
Below is a clear picture of how each company is tackling the ongoing global lobbying battle over artificial intelligence, based solely on their public statements from 2022 onwards.
Above all, the data shows a repetition of clear policy language at the heart of corporate lobbying efforts, such as “responsible AI,” “state-of-the-art models,” and “AI governance,” much of which is incomprehensible to anyone not working on the front lines of how countries, companies, academics, and civil society groups are trying to weave AI technologies into structures.
Interestingly, in a year marked by global elections, terms related to voting protection and integrity did not play a central role in companies' public statements.
The companies are listed alphabetically.
Aleph Alpha: The “Sovereign” Salesman
The German AI company may be less well known than its larger U.S. rivals, but the Heidelberg-based tech firm is pitching itself as Europe's homegrown champion, highlighting its track record in so-called “sovereign AI” and offering the continent an alternative to relying on foreign providers of emerging technologies.
Alphabet: Meeting everyone's needs
As one of the world's most important technology companies and parent to Google, YouTube and Gemini (an internal rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT), the company has sought to speak to as many sectors of the AI industry as possible, including promoting AI safety to policymakers, promoting inclusivity to civil society groups, and innovating and researching the latest advances to potential customers.
Amazon: “The Amazon Way”
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant is known for its frugal ways and focus on customers above all else, so it's no surprise that Amazon, not many people's first thought when it comes to AI innovation, has focused its public statements primarily on touting technology that speeds up cloud computing and other geeky products.
Anthropology: Playing in the major leagues
Anthropic, an AI startup that has raised about $4.5 billion since 2021, is by no means a loser in this great digital game. But according to its public statements, the company, founded by former OpenAI executives, is pitching itself as a responsible voice in AI governance, which has put it at the policymaking table alongside big companies like Meta and Microsoft.
Inflection AI: Personalization
It's unclear what the future holds for the AI startup now that co-founder Mustafa Suleiman has left to lead a larger, rival Microsoft company, but for more than two years the California-based company has been aggressively promoting its AI-powered personal assistant as a way to differentiate itself in an already crowded market.
Meta: Open Source Cheerleader
The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp has been embroiled in fierce policy battles around the world, but Mark Zuckerberg has positioned his company a little differently from its rivals. One of those ways is to focus Meta's AI development on so-called open source technology, a system that can be easily used by many people, not just a select few.
Microsoft: Too many public experts
Microsoft, the maker of Word and Outlook, is not skimping on its messaging around AI. In numerous documents, often aimed directly at policymakers and politicians, Microsoft overuses key buzzwords like “responsible AI,” “risk management” and “AI governance.” Of the companies surveyed, the American tech giant made more use of these jargon than any other company.
Mistral: a vibrant French start-up
When thinking about France's approach to tech, top-down regulation, rather than grassroots innovation, might immediately spring to mind, but Mistral, which just signed deals with both Microsoft and Amazon, has been keen to promote a business-first stance when talking publicly about its efforts.
OpenAI: The place everyone looks first
As the company that kicked off the recent AI boom with the release of its ChatGPT product in late 2022, OpenAI has naturally been a target of authorities and tech rivals. This has resulted in a proliferation of geeky research papers detailing how the company's systems were developed, and they are more focused on reducing potential shortcomings in AI than many of its rivals.
This article is part of a series. Bots and Votes: How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Elections Around the Worldprovided by ShineThis story was produced by POLITICO reporters and editors with complete editorial independence. learn more Editorial content provided by external advertisers.
