Emboldened by Trump, A.I. Companies Lobby for Fewer Rules

For just over two years, technology leaders at the forefront of developing artificial intelligence had made an unusual request of lawmakers. They wanted Washington to regulate them.

The tech executives warned lawmakers that generative A.I., which can produce text and images that mimic human creations, had the potential to disrupt national security and elections, and could eventually eliminate millions of jobs.

A.I. could go “quite wrong,” Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI,…