Do AI companies want to save humanity, or are they – Latest News
AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI out of the blue began sounding a five-alarm fire final week, insisting their tech is simply too good, developing too fast for humanity to deal with and may kill us all.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei desires to “slow the pace” of all the AI industry and demanded authorities intervention. Just hours later, OpenAI chief Sam Altman chimed in to say he agreed, as did Elon Musk.
Business leaders had been fast to level out that nothing is stopping these companies from independently slowing their innovation. But no one would intentionally handicap themselves — it appears what they actually want is for the federal government to usher in industry-wide regulation.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has a historical past of inflicting alarm — like he did in May 2025 when he stated half of entry-level white collar jobs may very well be eradicated by the new technology. Bloomberg by way of Getty Images
Such a transfer would shortly squelch many of the smaller gamers, whereas the largest companies — particularly Anthropic and OpenAI — would have the ability to journey it out.
It’s a well-worn playbook of regulatory seize: Incumbents warn of impending disaster and agitate for regulation, which handily prevents rivals from eclipsing them.
Amodei additionally advocated in a weblog post for Washington to give frontier labs a so-called antitrust waiver, which might permit them to coordinate with each other with out raising federal collusion or monopoly considerations — primarily a go for companies to regulate themselves — to guarantee security.
Now, you don’t need an antitrust waiver to make sure technology is protected, as former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya identified. You do need one in case you’re wanting to coordinate on different areas past protecting people protected.
Any wavier, as Bedoya put it, “should be met with deep skepticism in light of the economics of the industry and the threat they face from open [source] models.”
In some respects, I can’t blame them for taking this method. These companies have burned a whole bunch of billions in development and are nonetheless shedding money — OpenAI misplaced roughly $39 billion in 2025 — so they rely on hitting record-setting values of their IPOs.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated he agrees with Dario Amodei when it comes to reining within the tempo of innovation for frontier labs. REUTERS
And whereas their technology could also be used to treatment most cancers or infinitely increase productiveness, the companies themselves gained’t essentially revenue from such improvements.
Maybe they are honest of their perception AI may doom the world, however it’s awfully handy to push for regulation when they are on the cusp of cementing their function as worldwide leaders.
Anthropic’s public prospectus is anticipated within weeks and will worth the giant at $2 trillion. OpenAI pulled their IPO plans, with studies suggesting they will now go public in 2027.
Amodei additionally has a historical past of inflicting alarm — resembling in May 2025 when he stated half of entry-level white collar-jobs may very well be eradicated by his new technology. For the report, AI has created more jobs than it has eradicated and the World Economic Forum predicts that can solely proceed.
The whistleblower behind the most recent panic can also be suspect. Jacob Coxon — the 27-year-old researcher who stop Anthropic after simply 4 months, following three years at OpenAI — went viral warning the companies had been “gambling with our lives.”
Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old researcher who stop Anthropic after simply 4 months (following three years at OpenAI), went viral for warning that the companies had been “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.” Fox News
President Donald Trump referred to as the anti-AI and knowledge middle sentiment imperiling innovation a “sick conspiracy.” REUTERS
His post racked up more than 100 million views on X, regardless of the actual fact he had virtually no prior historical past on the platform. And within the subsequent few days he had landed wall-to-wall protection and interviews with Fox, CNN, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Nothing odd about a younger nerdy researcher with no recognized media expertise dominating an total information cycle. On Tuesday, he’s slated to seem on the Future of Life Institute’s “Pro-Human Assembly” alongside figures resembling Steve Bannon, Bernie Sanders, and Randi Weingarten (Sanders, for his half, has beforehand appeared alongside Chinese Communist Party officers at an occasion attempting to sluggish the tempo of AI).
Really? That’s Coxon’s resolution after warning that AI may kill us all? Bring in a man previous enough to be his grandfather and the broadly reviled head of the Teachers Union to devise a plan? I may hardly conceive of a more weird, not to point out feckless, group to create a framework for reining in essentially the most superior technology recognized to mankind.
Jacob Coxon’s post slamming AI went on to attain over 100 million people as he raised alarm bells about how quickly AI is transferring. X/Jacob Coxon
The best take was maybe Clement Delangue, the CEO of AI company Hugging Face, who claimed asking Coxon “about AI extinction risk is like asking your AC guy about climate change.”
Amid all this AI doom and gloom, you will have to ask — who stands to benefit? The reply is, of course, incumbent frontier labs and our international adversaries who will fortunately race forward if we sluggish down.
Fortunately, the White House isn’t enjoying into it. JD Vance stated frontier AI companies “begging the government to regulate them” felt like “a Trojan horse.”
Trump, in the meantime, defined, “We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.”
It is honest to have questions and considerations about AI, its bias and its impression on people. But possibly the best place to get solutions isn’t at all times from the people who are working it, particularly when rivals like Amodei and Altman appear so suspiciously keen to fall on their swords.
As Trump put it: “When, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy? AI, and Data Centers, will be the Greatest Economic Development Engine in History.”
