Barack Obama posted on X welcoming a "growing recognition that how this powerful new technology develops should be at the center of our public debate," and pointing to a new initiative: "some leaders in the space announced they're launching what they call Project Blueprint to help tech companies and policy makers work together on setting stronger standards and guidelines for AI development." He called himself neither "an AI accelerationist" nor "a doomer."
Per Andrew Ross Sorkin's DealBook report, Jay Carney, Obama's White House press secretary from 2011 to 2014, is joining Ron Conway's venture firm SV Angel to run it. Carney went on to lead global corporate affairs at Amazon, where he handled the company's public response to warehouse unionization drives, then became global head of policy and communications at Airbnb in 2022, a role he left in July.
The funder's other project
Conway, SV Angel's co-founder, is also a co-founder of Leading the Future, a super PAC formed in August 2025 that has raised over $140 million from backers including Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Palantir's Joe Lonsdale. It aims to back candidates who favor "AI leadership" and defeat candidates in either party who want tighter rules on the industry, through a Republican-aligned arm (American Mission PAC) and a Democratic-aligned one (Think Big PAC). As of June 30 it had spent nearly $45 million and held over $31 million in cash. The Trump White House has criticized the group, reportedly warning that "any group run by Schumer acolytes will not have the blessing of the president."
Nothing in the reporting on Project Blueprint describes a formal tie to Leading the Future. One is a policy-and-relationship effort at a venture firm; the other is a registered super PAC that spends on elections. What links them is Conway. Whether Project Blueprint is an independent standards effort or a friendlier channel alongside the PAC's spending depends on its funding, staffing and governance, none of which has been published.
Did the labs agree to slow down?
Obama said he was "encouraged" that frontier lab leaders "agree on the need to slow down the pace of AI development." Amodei's essay says otherwise in its own words: "pacing does not mean halting model training or technical progress." The one concrete commitment is embedded third-party evaluators with badge access and publication rights, a verification mechanism, not a slower release cadence. Sam Altman's reply offered "independent evaluators with employee-like access," narrower still. Both describe agreeing to be watched, not to go slower.
The wider pattern
The same question runs through this week's coverage of technical standards: whether the people proposing to referee AI have an answer that leaves them holding the whistle. Jack Dorsey's essay put it as "preserving a company's commercial advantage is not a safety objective." Conway could sincerely believe both that AI needs guardrails and that badly designed ones would be worse than none. But a $140 million fund against regulation-minded candidates, alongside a policy bridge staffed by a trusted former official, is the kind of structure that makes it fair to ask who defines "stronger."
Nothing suggests Obama has a financial stake in either effort. His stance echoes remarks at a September 10 DCCC fundraiser. His endorsement still lends Project Blueprint credibility before its funding and governance are known.