Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I\u2019m your host, Blake Montgomery, the US tech editor at the Guardian. Today we\u2019re discussing Donald Trump\u2019s neediness for AI and the contradictions of Anthropic\u2019s safety-first posture.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t kid yourself, Trump is not going to regulate AI<\/p>\n
Any prediction that Donald Trump will rein in the rapid development of artificial intelligence for safety reasons is laughable at this point.<\/p>\n
He issued a watered-down executive order on model review<\/a> last week and another demanding the US military accelerate AI adoption.<\/p>\n Rather than restrain growth, he\u2019s discussing buying stock.<\/p>\n Trump said last week that his administration would \u201clook into\u201d taking financial stakes in the US\u2019s leading artificial intelligence companies. Sam Altman has reportedly<\/a> participated in discussions of such stock purchases with senior White House officials, indicating the discussions are somewhat serious.<\/p>\n In typical vague but confirmatory fashion, Trump told reporters on Friday: \u201cThere\u2019s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public. We\u2019ll \u200blook into that.\u201d<\/p>\n A US stake in AI companies could cut two ways. Trump could use the government\u2019s leverage as a major shareholder to restrict AI development and align it with safety incentives more than financial ones.<\/p>\n Or he could encourage AI firms to grow as lucrative and large as possible so the federal government can cash out like a venture capital firm. My money is on the latter.<\/p>\n Should Trump push the growth approach, it does not seem likely he would press AI startups in the US to slow things down in the name of safety, whether in the form of constraining models\u2019 capabilities or halting the construction of hyperscale datacenters. He\u2019ll want his money\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n Two of Trump\u2019s executive orders issued last week likewise point to a continuation of his growth-at-all-costs approach. One executive order sought<\/a> but did not mandate a government review of AI models 30 days before their releases.<\/p>\n He had postponed signing the order in late May, telling reporters: \u201cWe\u2019re leading China, we\u2019re leading everybody, and I don\u2019t want to do anything that\u2019s gonna get in the way of that lead.\u201d The previous version of the order reportedly would have enforced stricter standards: mandatory review, 90 days in advance.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s second executive order directed the defense department to accelerate AI adoption, particularly with regards to national cybersecurity. In it, he put into writing the now obvious core aspect of his stance on AI, asserting that the US leads in AI \u201cbecause we refuse to stifle this innovation with overly burdensome regulation\u201d.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t expect his posture to change any time soon, and don\u2019t look to him for a check on the headlong expansion of the US\u2019s AI giants. The only check or balance we seem to have on that is Anthropic\u2019s own conscience.<\/p>\n OpenAI filed to go public on the US stock marketApple\u2019s annual developer conferenceTech and powerA pause on AI development would be very good business for Anthropic<\/p>\n Anthropic said the world should have the option to \u201cpause\u201d AI development.<\/p>\n It also filed to go public on the US stock market. <\/p>\n A freeze would be very good for the company, which is leading the AI race.<\/p>\n Last week, Anthropic advocated for a possible \u201ctemporary pause\u201d on advancing the capabilities of AI, saying it would convene policymakers to discuss the risks of the cutting-edge technology. In the same post, the company said its progress developing its chatbot Claude would someday soon lead to \u201crecursive self-improvement\u201d, a model with the capability to make better and more powerful versions of itself.<\/p>\n A few days prior, Anthropic confidentially filed for an initial public offering on the US stock market, cementing its status as more valuable than OpenAI for now. A freeze on AI development as the company, valued at some $965bn, overtakes OpenAI, its main rival in the AI race, worth roughly $850bn, would be quite convenient.<\/p>\n Who would that freeze apply to \u2013 competitors only, perhaps? \u2013 and would outwardly ethical labs \u2013 Anthropic, perhaps? \u2013 be exempted?<\/p>\n The company has mastered the posture of proclaiming its own fright at just how powerful its technology is, implying by the strength of its own executives\u2019 reactions that its model Claude is, in fact, mighty.<\/p>\n Anthropic\u2019s branding as a lab populated by an army of coding Victor Frankensteins, so brilliant but so afraid of their own creations, has been successful. It poses as the more thoughtful counterweight to a reckless OpenAI, hellbent on releasing new products no matter their consequences, but competes on a similar product release schedule. The company\u2019s slow rollout of its Mythos cybersecurity product only to trusted partners does signal a desire to responsibly roll AI out, but OpenAI followed the same playbook with its cybersecurity-focused product.<\/p>\n The question I keep coming back to, though, is this: with all this hand-wringing over AI safety, why keep developing AI? It\u2019s not a compulsory service. Go do something else if you\u2019re so afraid. But that seems unlikely, and you wouldn\u2019t get rich from one of the stock market\u2019s biggest debuts ever<\/a> if you walked away now, and so I don\u2019t think we need to accept the calls for a \u201cpause\u201d at face value.<\/p>\n The AI boom\u2019s aftereffects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I\u2019m your host, Blake Montgomery, the US tech editor at the Guardian. 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