Report from CNBC
In Brief – OpenAI has been talking with other artificial intelligence companies, including Anthropic and Google, about how they can work together to address safety concerns. Discussions reportedly began after Demis Hassabis, the chair of Google DeepMind, released an essay where he suggested establishing a public-private partnership or self-regulatory organization with federal oversight, akin to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The AI leaders have been facing intense pressure to address mounting safety and security concerns in recent weeks, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged AI companies to slow how quickly they improve their most advanced models, a move that was lauded by several industry leaders. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he agreed with Amodei and that development slowdown has been a “primary topic” of discussion at OpenAI in recent weeks. Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, added in a blog post that OpenAI is working to advance voluntary “industry-led standards” with or without government support.
Context – When Senate Republicans Ted Cruz (TX) and Josh Hawley (MO) recently agreed at a congressional hearing that giving an antitrust exemption to the top AI companies to facilitate safety cooperation should be taken off the table, it was a clear sign that the idea faces opposition from across the policy spectrum. David Sacks, a top AI policy advisor to President Trump, likewise rejected the antitrust exemption idea, most recently proposed by Amodei, arguing that safe models are simply good business because customers want reliable systems and a safety disaster would be financially devastating to a company. Sacks and Cruz are two of the biggest Republican AI champions and opponents of regulation, while Hawley is one of the most aggressive Republican critics of big tech, including the AI giants. Lina Khan, former Chair of the FTC under President Biden and one of the highest profile progressive critics of big tech added to the discussion saying that current law offers plenty of incentives to the companies to focus more on safety. As we’ve said, the companies have lawyers who can explain what they can do.