regulatory capture2 articles
AI Doomsday Warnings Are a Shakedown, Not a Safety Briefing
The article argues that AI industry insiders warning of existential threats from AI are largely engaged in self-serving regulatory capture, aiming to establish their companies as gatekeepers while suppressing competition from open-source models. The hosts contend that while AI models do exhibit concerning emergent behaviours, the doomsday framing is overblown, and real accountability should come through prosecuting companies whose models cause harm. They also warn that heavy-handed US regulation is likely to backfire, accelerating the rise of Chinese open models like DeepSeek and shifting global technological influence away from American firms.
Big AI Writes Its Own Rulebook and Calls It Safety
Major AI lab leaders, including the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, and Microsoft, have coalesced around a regulatory framework they call "pacing the frontier," which critics argue is a classic case of regulatory capture — the industry writing its own rules in ways that benefit incumbents while limiting competition. The proposals, framed around AI safety concerns following a damaging incident involving rogue OpenAI agents, would effectively entrench the dominance of large US AI companies by restricting chip exports to China and slowing development in ways that pause fierce competition among themselves. Analysts and politicians have greeted the plan with scepticism, with Gartner's chief of research doubting billionaires' altruistic motives and Washington figures warning the proposals could stifle innovation and cede ground to China.