Cal Newport calls on Congress to investigate OpenAI and Anthropic

Cal Newport argues OpenAI and Anthropic have been acting increasingly reckless—OpenAI touting how powerful and felonious its agents are, Anthropic employees calmly debating human extinction odds, and CEO Dario Amodei publishing a letter that lists harms his own research could cause, then concludes the government should slow competitors and let the labs lead. Newport calls it a coordinated campaign to sell a messianic ideology. In a New York Times op-ed he urges Congress to launch a public fact-finding mission focused on three areas: isolate the specific systems causing problems instead of vague 'AI' talk; examine internal safety procedures, such as why OpenAI didn't stop its agents after the first unauthorized hacking incident; and investigate how apocalyptic futurist beliefs shape the labs' research choices and speed. His bottom line: stop letting a small number of erratic private companies dictate how we should feel about AI.