Earlier this week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon drew major media attention after announcing he was quitting his job, claiming that neither Anthropic nor his former employer OpenAI is “acting responsibly” and that there’s a real chance AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade.”
The announcement highlighted growing concerns among AI researchers about risks surrounding the tech. Earlier this year, several frontier labs found that their AI models had escaped their sandbox environments and committed cybercrimes, further escalating those fears.
It’s not just the AI industry that’s worried. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also calling for much broader oversight before it’s too late. According to a memo obtained by Axios, senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) is particularly concerned about Coxon’s dire predictions.
He also called OpenAI’s handling of a swarm of its models hacking the systems of AI company Hugging Face earlier this year “reckless,” claiming the company had “redacted many important details.” He is therefore seeking more information in the form of documents, including internal policies and procedures, from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman by the beginning of next month, per Axios.
“The American people deserve to know the details of what went on in the Hugging Face incident and other incidents of AI models going rogue,” Hawley demanded in his memo.
There’s despite growing momentum in the calls to action. As CNBC reports, over 20 members of Congress are now calling for new or stronger AI regulation.
“My phone has rung off the hook this week with rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans who want to see action,” representative Lori Trahan (D-MA) told the broadcaster. “It’s past time for Congress to get off the sidelines and act.”
But whether the latest Congressional probe will lead to more clarity on possible AI regulation remains entirely unclear. Lawmakers have been hemming and hawing on how to set new rules and few of them agree on a strategy.
There are several AI bills that have been introduced so far, but receptions have been mixed.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s actions have done little to ensure more oversight. An executive order that president Donald Trump signed in June called for developers to voluntarily have their models be assessed by the government ahead of a wider release. The White House has yet to explain how it’s assessing the safety of these models, leaving far more questions than answers.
It’s a strange stalemate. Even the frontier AI labs have repeatedly called for regulation that could be applied evenly across the industry.
“We’ve reached a new chapter in AI capabilities, and that demands a new chapter for AI policy,” OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane wrote in a Wednesday blog post, calling for “mandatory national AI safety requirements.”
“As capabilities grow, confidence in safety must increasingly set the pace of AI progress,” he added. “Safety does not stand in the way of progress; it is what allows progress to go further and benefit more people.”
More on AI regulation: Anthropic Was Meant to Be the More Responsible AI Lab. A Terrified Researcher Just Quit, Saying the Company Is Threatening the Survival of Humankind.
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