{"id":7305,"date":"2026-09-19T13:34:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T13:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=7305"},"modified":"2026-09-19T13:34:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T13:34:41","slug":"the-ai-regulation-smackdown-isnt-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=7305","title":{"rendered":"The AI regulation smackdown isn\u2019t over"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n

At the start of this week, the who\u2019s-who of AI seemed \u2014 at least tentatively \u2014 on the side of AI regulation. Over the weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had proposed a three-step plan for slowing AI development, including by embedding third-party evaluators in labs, coordinating across the domestic industry, and forging international agreements potentially with government assistance. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis, and even SpaceX CEO Elon Musk publicly seemed to agree on aspects of all three things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Anthropic and OpenAI had already been dropping<\/a> hints<\/a> that they and other labs were working on some kind of industry framework. Appearing pro-regulation looked like both a good PR move and, potentially, a way for companies to address fallout from progressively<\/a> more<\/a> concerning<\/a> hacking incidents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

For now, any government involvement in this process looks like a non-starter. The Trump administration has attacked the idea of a safety crisis in AI, calling it a \u201choax.\u201d The AI world itself is also divided. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg quickly came out against limiting companies\u2019 autonomy, and earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported that Zuckerberg, Musk, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang scuttled proposals for an industry-funded independent regulator for the AI industry \u2014 akin to the \u200bFinancial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a private nonprofit regulator in finance. But parts of the industry aren\u2019t giving up on the idea, including OpenAI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cPeople want to know AI is being developed safely,\u201d Chris Lehane, OpenAI\u2019s global affairs chief, told The Verge<\/em>. \u201cThat begins with the steps companies like ours take on our own, but government has an important role too. The AI policy window is open, with growing bipartisan support for mandatory national safety standards for frontier AI. Congress should turn that momentum into a framework that strengthens safety, supports American innovation, and keeps the U.S. leading in AI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

An AI venture capitalist, who requested anonymity due to their current investments, agreed that regulation was necessary. \u201cYou see these moments in every technology, whether it was electricity, cars, or airplanes, where, at some point, the industry had to come together to find a way to say, \u2018How do we collectively embrace what safety means?\u2019 Cars were unsafe, airplanes were unsafe, and then we had to create safety standards that everybody embraced that actually made technology more widespread. But the early days are always a little wild and unruly, and that\u2019s how technology unfolds.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Anthropic declined to comment, but Amodei wrote in his essay that the company has \u201calways \u2026 advocat[ed] for well-considered regulation of AI, even when this gets us accused of hype, \u2018doomerism\u2019, or regulatory capture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Other companies have remained quiet. Safe Superintelligence Inc., SpaceX, and Google didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment. Thinking Machines Lab declined to comment. And Meta pointed to an X post<\/a> by Zuckerberg, in which he distanced himself from the calls for a slowdown and regulation, writing, \u201cEvery lab has the responsibility and incentive to move at the pace required to train its models safely, and the ability to take its own actions to ensure that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Zuckerberg\u2019s line of thinking appears in vogue with Trump right now. The president made headlines last week for calling recent fears about AI risks a \u201choax.\u201d He called Huang<\/a> while the latter was onstage at a conference and told a crowd over speakerphone that \u201cThe robots will not be taking over.\u201d That same day, he also posted<\/a> on social media that \u201cthe only control or \u2018guardrails\u2019 that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!\u201d He added that the Trump administration has already \u201cstopped AI \u2018people\u2019 from doing bad, or potentially bad, \u2018things,\u2019\u201d using its existing \u201ctremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!\u201d He denounced a \u201cSICK conspiracy\u201d going on against both AI and data centers and that whoever wins AI wins overall. \u201cConspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

For Nick Reese, an adjunct professor at New York University and the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s former director of emerging tech policy, Trump\u2019s current anti-regulation statements about AI are confusing because he worked with the first Trump administration to develop Executive Order 13960 \u2014 which Trump signed and has not been repealed. The order was centered on creating a set of principles for federal AI use that would protect \u201cprivacy, civil rights, [and] civil liberties.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cSix years ago, the Trump Administration signed executive action on AI safety, so there is a real change in the president\u2019s position on the topic,\u201d Reese said. \u201cAI safety requires more than the intellectual abilities of one elected official.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

As AI-industry blogger Zvi Mowshowitz put it<\/a>, Trump isn\u2019t necessarily fully anti-regulation \u2014 after all, he\u2019s the one who slapped some restrictions on frontier labs, like pre-release testing<\/a> by the government<\/a>. But he\u2019s driven more by, in Mowshowitz\u2019s words, \u201cvibes\u201d than consistent policy. \u201cTrump\u2019s not yet buying this \u2018existential risk\u2019 thing, that\u2019s \u2018negative forces,\u2019\u201d Mowshowitz wrote. So government guardrails aren\u2019t exactly ruled out, but they may bear little resemblance to what OpenAI or Anthropic want \u2014 let alone the plans of less-powerful, independent AI safety advocates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Overall, the administration\u2019s positions on AI regulation have been \u201cwobbly and inconsistent,\u201d Reese said. \u201cThe result of that is that we are now framing AI safety in this doomsday scenario where the robots are coming to get us. But framing it as \u2018robots are coming to get us\u2019 really distorts what the core problem actually is. The core problem is that we have AI that is not physical or embodied in a robot that is hurting humans now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social that the administration currently has both criminal and regulatory power over AI labs, but Reese said we\u2019re nowhere near sufficient regulatory authority over the AI industry. As the technology advances, and the general public continues to push back \u2014 protests<\/a>, boycotts<\/a>, and outcry<\/a> over the AI industry\u2019s concentrated power in the hands of few \u2014 calls for regulation are only increasing, and that pressure could influence Trump\u2019s current position.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Reese said the opposition to regulation boils down to a \u201ctired\u201d idea that it\u2019s always bad for innovation. Instead, he says, it\u2019s important to think about why anything gets regulated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cWe regulate things that we can tolerate no failure on \u2026 like the financial sector or airlines,\u201d he said. \u201cWe build systems and checks and quality assurance and fallback mechanisms to make sure that those things don\u2019t harm life or harm us systemically. But somehow we\u2019re exempting AI from that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Follow topics and authors<\/strong> from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.<\/span><\/p>\n