- Anthropic and OpenAI are asking governments to work together to slow risky innovation
- US politicians are factoring in AI into their arguments as midterm elections approach
- Trump currently worries that taking the foot off the throttle could let China overtake
Tech leaders at the forefront of AI, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, are publicly calling for slow AI innovation in order to buy more time to assess AI risks.
Among the risks highlighted in Amodei's warning are that AI systems could become impossible for humans to control, cyberattacks could become worse and AI could even facilitate biological weaponry.
Subsequently, he's called for external evaluators to gain deeper access to their models and safety processes, but crucially, Amodei advocate for greater government involvement.
Even AI companies want governments to step in
Anthropic's CEO is pushing for democratic countries to agree common AI safety standards and rules, and the eventual international coordination over the most dangerous AI capabilities, including with China.
And it's this international coordination that could prove key to slowing down risky innovation, because to date, US President Donald Trump has pushed back against warnings over worries that slowing down American companies would ultimately cause China to overtake the US.
"Whoever wins AI wins," Trump said (via CNBC).
"If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said.
And for the US in particular, now is a more important time than ever. Democratic nominee for Governor of Texas Gina Hinojosa recently described data centers, and therefore AI, as "the fight of this election season."
There's an increasingly narrow pre-election window for legislation as the technology increasingly shows divides not just between the two big parties, but also within them.
"We've reached a new chapter in AI capabilities, and that demands a new chapter for AI policy," OpenAI Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane wrote. And with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, right at the top of American AI, warning about AI's potential impacts, Senator Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., likened the scenario to Dr. Frankenstein "telling us the monster is escaping."
With midterm elections just two months away, we're likely to see discussions around AI ramp up as politicians and influential leaders continue to get involved in guardrail discourse.
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