A fight over AI safety is really a fight over control, as tech executives clash over whether governments or companies should set the rules.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a nearly 4,000-word essay arguing AI development should slow so guardrails can be deployed, including international collaboration between companies and governments. OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk endorsed the plan.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg endorsed parts of it but suggested government action is unnecessary, saying trust and alignment will differentiate agents and models. He said Meta delayed shipping its Muse model for several months to focus on safety, adding the company did not ask others to do the same first.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian told CNBC the industry had been largely "tone deaf" explaining AI risks to the public, but expressed hope companies would figure things out themselves. Google DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg said capabilities are advancing quickly but cannot get ahead of safety.
The Information reported OpenAI, Anthropic and other major AI companies were working together to create an AI standards organization described as a private self-regulatory body. The Trump White House has not pursued a federally run version; AI czar David Sacks has said regulation should be left to the companies developing AI. House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed catastrophic AI concerns, saying: "You're not all going to be dead in 10 years."
Critics call this regulatory capture. Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez accused those companies of forming a "cartel," writing that AI needs guardrails but the dispute is over who writes them and whose interests they protect. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun accused Americans of "fearmongering" to disrupt global AI governance, and a state-run newspaper op-ed called Amodei's rhetoric straight from a "Cold War playbook." Amodei wrote that executing his measures well would slow China's progress enough to widen America's lead significantly over the next 3-5 years.
Source: TechCrunch