AI leaders call for regulations, Trump dismisses 'hoaxes'

Some of the leading figures in artificial intelligence (AI) are collaborating on the creation of a standards body that would regulate the industry, amid heightened concerns over its potential dangers and the US government's perceived inaction. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with tech giants Anthropic and Google to establish this self-regulatory body.

This initiative follows growing calls for more stringent oversight of the rapidly advancing technology, a call that has thus far gone unaddressed by the Donald Trump administration.

The proposed body, modeled after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, would be tasked with testing the most powerful AI systems before they are made available to the public. Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, suggested that the funding for such a project should come from the industry itself, attracting top technical talent and providing the necessary computational resources for large-scale testing.

The idea of a federal organization was first proposed by Hassabis in July, with industry leaders such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk of xAI expressing support for the notion.

However, the proposal has met with skepticism from the Trump administration, which has dismissed the calls for stricter AI regulation as "hoaxes" and a "conspiracy." Despite the lack of action from Washington, a divided Congress controlled by Trump's Republican party has failed to pass any legislation on the matter. The looming midterm elections further complicate the prospects of any imminent action, as voters' concerns about AI and the energy-intensive data centers required to run it remain a priority.

The dire prediction that AI could pose a threat to humanity's existence is not based on scientific evidence, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose company supplies the majority of AI systems. Huang has praised the president for apparently dismissing the warnings surrounding AI. While some leading Republicans, like Vice President JD Vance, have expressed caution about the technology's potential risks, the business community has raised concerns that self-regulatory measures could disproportionately impact smaller AI companies.

Canadian AI firm Cohere's CEO, Aidan Gomez, has accused the dominant American AI labs of forming a "cartel" under the guise of safety, warning that the real dispute is about who writes the regulations, who participates, and whose interests the rules serve.