{"id":365542,"date":"2026-10-06T05:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T05:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365542\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T05:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T05:38:16","slug":"ai-execs-grilled-by-nyc-pols-on-dangers-of-tech-that-could-end-in-human-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365542\/","title":{"rendered":"AI execs grilled by NYC pols on dangers of tech that \u2018could end in human extinction\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big Apple lawmakers took tech executives to task about the dangers of artificial intelligence during a marathon public hearing Monday \u2014 as the City Council weighs imposing its own restrictions <\/a>on the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to hear how each of you quantify the risk imposed by AI in the worst case, catastrophic scenario,\u201d Council Speaker Julie Menin told policy leads and other executives from Google, Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI, who agreed to testify <\/a>after being threatened with subpoenas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, I also don\u2019t think it matters,\u201d replied Morgan Dwyer, OpenAI\u2019s head of policy development and operations, who testified virtually along with the reps from the three other tech giants.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say you don\u2019t know or [it] doesn\u2019t matter is flippant at best,\u201d Menin shot back.<\/p>\n

Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher and whistleblower on AI, sounded the alarm during the hearing. Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can\u2019t quantify what safety or risk is, how do you know the product is safe?\u201d she railed, comparing it to a pharmaceutical company developing a drug and saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to kill people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hours-long grilling kicked off with testimony from AI whistleblowers<\/a>, who, along with some grandstanding council members, painted a bleak picture of the unchecked technology potentially upending the city\u2019s economy and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my experience, the companies are being extremely reckless given the stakes,\u201d said Jacob Coxon, a former researcher at Anthropic and OpenAI, who warned <\/a>last month that AI could pose an extinction-level threat to humanity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the current path, I think it is more likely than not that humanity loses control to these AIs, and it could end in human extinction,\u201d he told the council on Monday.<\/p>\n

City Council Speaker Julie Menin grilled AI execs over the dangers of the potentially out-of-control technology. Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n

The AI executives tried to paint a rosier picture, attempting to pitch the lawmakers on the benefits of the tech \u2014 including advancements in medical research and providing small businesses with tools they wouldn\u2019t have previously had access to.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is making it possible to solve economic, scientific and social problems faster than ever,\u201d said Dwyer.<\/p>\n

But even the company representatives admitted that the potential groundbreaking advancements were not without dangers.<\/p>\n

Morgan Dwyer of OpenAI, top left, Shane Cahill of Meta, top right, and Alice Friend of Google, bottom, virtually attend a New York City Council hearing. Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think AI has tremendous potential benefits\u2026 but no technology is without risks and there are a wide spectrum of risks. Clearly some risks are unacceptable,\u201d Dwyer said after being peppered with questions by Menin.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur common belief is that if not properly safeguarded, the risks from AI can be extremely high,\u201d added Logan Graham, who leads Anthropic\u2019s Frontier Red Team, which is responsible for stress-testing advance AI models, such as Claude.<\/p>\n

The executives largely seemed to back the council\u2019s proposal to boost protections and even offer cash rewards for whistleblowers who want to come forward about the risks of AI.<\/p>\n

Pols also pressed them on third-party validation measures, potential job loss and whether the companies would work with immigration officials.<\/p>\n

But none of the council members questioned the company reps about the legislative body\u2019s cornerstone proposal \u2014 a \u201ckill switch\u201d or human override requirement for an AI system to operate in the city. <\/p>\n

As the lawmakers tried to lead the country in addressing the tech, the limited power of the council to fully regulate the companies \u2014 which operate around the world \u2014 loomed large.<\/p>\n

All of the attendees stressed the need for robust federal regulation to keep the rapidly advancing intelligence at bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most effective safeguards are anchored in national technical standards and harmonized across state and federal levels,\u201d said Alice Friends, the global director of AI policy for Google.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big Apple lawmakers took tech executives to task about the dangers of artificial intelligence during a marathon public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[66,301,1905,19077,57,9,56,63,65,64,58],"class_list":["post-365542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-city-council","tag-information-technology","tag-julie-menin","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}