The White House has suspended efforts to establish an AI regulatory body modeled after FINRA. The initiative, initially proposed by Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis in July, faced significant pushback from tech executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and David Sacks, who contacted Donald Trump in August to express their opposition.
President Trump has recently dismissed concerns regarding AI safety as a hoax. His administration's shift in stance was partially influenced by a 3822-word article from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, which officials viewed as unnecessarily alarmist. Consequently, the White House has ceased serious consideration of new regulatory proposals.
In Congress, legislative efforts like the bipartisan Frontier Act remain stalled. The bill proposes allowing the Department of Commerce to station auditors at AI labs and halt development if models pose catastrophic risks. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson has shown no intention of bringing the bill to a floor vote.
Legislators have also introduced an emergency shutdown bill to grant the government power to force the closure of AI models. Tech industry leaders remain skeptical of this approach, arguing that such measures are ineffective if damage has already occurred, as demonstrated by the delayed detection of the recent Hugging Face security breach.
