Members of Congress heard the word extinction and remembered they have subpoenas. A researcher told them OpenAI and Anthropic might kill everyone. Lawmakers nodded gravely and promised to regulate something eventually. This marks the first time anyone in Washington pretended to understand what AI does since that one guy asked if Google runs on coal.
The researcher warned both companies are acting irresponsibly. He did not specify whether this means they're building Skynet or just letting interns train models on Reddit threads. Congress responded with the legislative equivalent of writing "call mom" on a napkin and losing the napkin immediately. Hearings will be scheduled for sometime between next month and the heat death of the universe.
OpenAI and Anthropic have spent years assuring everyone their technology is perfectly safe while also begging the government to regulate them before they accidentally end humanity. It's the corporate strategy equivalent of driving drunk and calling the cops on yourself. Brilliant stuff. Really inspires confidence in the people building machines that might replace human cognition.
Retail traders saw "AI regulation" and immediately bought call options on companies that make chatbots. They reasoned that government attention means legitimacy. These are the same people who invested in blockchain companies because they saw the word blockchain. They will lose money. They always lose money.
The extinction warning joins a growing list of apocalyptic scenarios Congress has been briefed on and subsequently ignored. Climate scientists have been screaming for decades. Epidemiologists warned about pandemics. Cybersecurity experts said the grid could go dark tomorrow. But sure, this time they'll act fast because a guy said the robot might get mad.
Photo by Adam Michael Szuscik on Unsplash
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