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Three months ago, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman told me his concerns<\/a> about a mounting public relations crisis facing artificial intelligence companies: Despite the popularity of tools like ChatGPT, an increasingly large share of the population said they viewed AI negatively. Since then, the backlash has only intensified.<\/p>\n College commencement speakers are now getting booed<\/a> for talking about AI in optimistic terms. Last month, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman\u2019s San Francisco home<\/a> and wrote a manifesto advocating for crimes against AI executives. No one has more to lose from this reputation crisis than OpenAI.<\/p>\n The person tasked with trying to fix it is Chris Lehane, OpenAI\u2019s chief of global affairs and a veteran political operative. I sat down with him this week to discuss what I\u2019d argue are his two biggest challenges yet: convincing the world to embrace OpenAI\u2019s technology, while at the same time persuading lawmakers to adopt regulations that won\u2019t hamper the company\u2019s growth. Lehane views these goals as one in the same.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was in the White House, we always used to talk about how good policy equals good politics,\u201d says Lehane. \u201cYou have to think about both of these things moving in concert.\u201d<\/p>\n After working on crisis communications in Bill Clinton\u2019s White House, Lehane gave himself the nickname \u201cmaster of disaster.\u201d He later helped Airbnb fend off regulators in cities that viewed short-term home rentals as existing in a legal gray area, or as he puts it, \u201cahead of the law.\u201d Lehane also played an instrumental role 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\u2019s quickly become one of the company\u2019s most influential executives and now oversees its communications and policy teams.<\/p>\n Lehane tells me public narratives about how AI will change society are often \u201cartificially binary.\u201d On one side is the \u201cBob Ross view of the world\u201d that predicts a future where nobody has to work anymore and everyone lives in \u201cbeachside homes painting in watercolors all day.\u201d On the other is a dystopian future in which AI has become so powerful that only a small group of elites have the ability to control it. Neither scenario, in Lehane\u2019s opinion, is very realistic.<\/p>\n OpenAI is guilty of promoting this kind of polarizing speech in the past. CEO Sam Altman warned last year that \u201cwhole classes of jobs<\/a>\u201d will go away when the singularity arrives. More recently he has softened his tone, declaring<\/a> that \u201cjobs doomerism is likely long-term wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Lehane wants OpenAI to start conveying a more \u201ccalibrated\u201d message about the promises of AI that avoids either of these extremes. He says the company needs to put forward real solutions to the problems people are worried about, such as potential widespread job loss and the negative impacts of chatbots on children. As an example of this work, Lehane pointed to a list of policy proposals that OpenAI recently published,<\/a> which include creating a four-day work week, expanding access to health care, and passing a tax on AI-powered labor.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re going to go out and say that there are challenges here, you also then have an obligation\u2014particularly if you\u2019re building this stuff\u2014to actually come up with the ideas to solve those things,\u201d Lehane says.<\/p>\n Some former OpenAI employees, however, have accused the company of downplaying the potential downsides of AI adoption. WIRED previously reported that members of OpenAI\u2019s economic research unit quit after they became concerned that it was morphing into an advocacy arm for the company.<\/a> The former employees argued that their warnings about AI\u2019s economic impacts may have been inconvenient for OpenAI, but they honestly reflected what the company\u2019s research found.<\/p>\n With public skepticism toward AI growing, politicians are under pressure to prove to voters they can rein in tech companies. To combat this, the AI industry has stood up a new group of super PACs that are boosting pro-AI political candidates and trying to influence public opinion<\/a> about the technology. Critics say the move backfired, and some candidates have started campaigning on the fact<\/a> that AI super PACS are opposing them.<\/p>\n Lehane helped set up one of the biggest 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 Bores<\/a>, the author of New York\u2019s strongest AI safety law who is running for Congress in the state\u2019s 12th district.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nPacking Punches<\/h2>\n