Silicon Valley's AI moguls are flooding Washington with competing blueprints for superintelligence, clashing over a defining question: Does safety come from spreading powerful AI or containing it? Why it matters: Their fight will shape who gets access to the best models, how America competes with China, and whether the government can slow the race in an emergency. Driving the news: Alarming developments, seemingly by the day, have turned the manifestos from thought exercises into an urgent policy battle. - OpenAI and Anthropic both disclosed that their advanced models went rogue and broke into external systems during cybersecurity evaluations. - Kimi K3 delivered a double shock: The Chinese model not only reached frontier-level…
Silicon Valley's AI moguls are flooding Washington with competing blueprints for superintelligence, clashing over a defining question: Does safety come from spreading powerful AI or containing it? Why it matters: Their fight will shape who gets access to the best models, how America competes with China, and whether the government can slow the race in an emergency. Driving the news: Alarming developments, seemingly by the day, have turned the manifestos from thought exercises into an urgent policy battle. - OpenAI and Anthropic both disclosed that their advanced models went rogue and broke into external systems during cybersecurity evaluations. - Kimi K3 delivered a double shock: The Chinese model not only reached frontier-level…Open
Anthropic spent this winter and spring as the darling of America's AI boom, conquering the frontier while casting itself as the industry's moral conscience. - By summer, the Claude maker had found itself alone on an island of its own principles. Why it matters: Anthropic is simultaneously the world's most valuable startup and its most isolated AI leader. The company's idiosyncrasies have strained its relationship with developers, policymakers and partners as it barrels toward a potential trillion-dollar IPO . Driving the news: Anthropic is the only frontier AI lab that declined to sign an open letter led by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang urging Washington not to restrict open-weight models, a category currently dominated by China. -…
Anthropic spent this winter and spring as the darling of America's AI boom, conquering the frontier while casting itself as the industry's moral conscience. - By summer, the Claude maker had found itself alone on an island of its own principles. Why it matters: Anthropic is simultaneously the world's most valuable startup and its most isolated AI leader. The company's idiosyncrasies have strained its relationship with developers, policymakers and partners as it barrels toward a potential trillion-dollar IPO . Driving the news: Anthropic is the only frontier AI lab that declined to sign an open letter led by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang urging Washington not to restrict open-weight models, a category currently dominated by China. -…Open
We ask almost every AI architect and leader the same thing in private: What AI risk worries you most? - Almost all of them fire back the same response: a killer pathogen, spreading too silently, widely and quickly to stop. Why it matters: The rare agreement among AI experts flows from the belief these advanced models could help a bad actor create a deadly pathogen before the government and industry perfect detection and prevention systems. This isn't a likely scenario. And some of AI's biggest optimists reject doom scenarios. - It's simply a plausible one as AI gets better at understanding our biological vulnerabilities, much like it has our cyber ones inside large nonhuman systems. Driving the news: The experts aren't hedging. In a new…
We ask almost every AI architect and leader the same thing in private: What AI risk worries you most? - Almost all of them fire back the same response: a killer pathogen, spreading too silently, widely and quickly to stop. Why it matters: The rare agreement among AI experts flows from the belief these advanced models could help a bad actor create a deadly pathogen before the government and industry perfect detection and prevention systems. This isn't a likely scenario. And some of AI's biggest optimists reject doom scenarios. - It's simply a plausible one as AI gets better at understanding our biological vulnerabilities, much like it has our cyber ones inside large nonhuman systems. Driving the news: The experts aren't hedging. In a new…Open
The models include one that is the company’s most powerful and another that is fine-tuned for cybersecurity, as Google competes with rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Google DeepMind lost two high-profile researchers in a week marked by a flurry of departures across major AI labs. Why it matters: The talent wars continue and have intensified at the highest levels as many AI developers believe that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is on the horizon. Driving the news: Noam Shazeer announced last week that he was leaving Google DeepMind for OpenAI. Google previously paid more than $2 billion to acqui-hire Shazeer and part of his Character.ai team. - Shazeer co-authored the pivotal 2017 paper "Attention Is All You Need," which introduced the Transformer architecture — the "T" in ChatGPT. - Two days later, John Jumper, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold, said he was also…
Google DeepMind lost two high-profile researchers in a week marked by a flurry of departures across major AI labs. Why it matters: The talent wars continue and have intensified at the highest levels as many AI developers believe that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is on the horizon. Driving the news: Noam Shazeer announced last week that he was leaving Google DeepMind for OpenAI. Google previously paid more than $2 billion to acqui-hire Shazeer and part of his Character.ai team. - Shazeer co-authored the pivotal 2017 paper "Attention Is All You Need," which introduced the Transformer architecture — the "T" in ChatGPT. - Two days later, John Jumper, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold, said he was also…Open
The Trump administration says it wants American AI to dominate the world. - But its decision to force Anthropic to abruptly cut off access to one of its most advanced models risks sending foreign governments and companies a very different message: Don't build your future on U.S. AI. Why it matters: As the Trump administration shapes its AI regulatory regime in real time, the precedents it sets could reverberate far beyond an individual showdown with Anthropic. Catch up quick: The last month of AI policymaking has been a blur of zigs and zags by the administration. - First Trump delayed an executive order that would have created a voluntary reporting system for advanced AI releases. He said he didn't want to threaten America's lead over…
The Trump administration says it wants American AI to dominate the world. - But its decision to force Anthropic to abruptly cut off access to one of its most advanced models risks sending foreign governments and companies a very different message: Don't build your future on U.S. AI. Why it matters: As the Trump administration shapes its AI regulatory regime in real time, the precedents it sets could reverberate far beyond an individual showdown with Anthropic. Catch up quick: The last month of AI policymaking has been a blur of zigs and zags by the administration. - First Trump delayed an executive order that would have created a voluntary reporting system for advanced AI releases. He said he didn't want to threaten America's lead over…Open
Anthropic's latest models display some vulnerability to being used in "heinous crimes," including the development of chemical weapons, the company said in a new sabotage report released late Tuesday. Why it matters: Increasingly powerful AI models also mean heightened scrutiny of the potential for disastrous behavior. What they're saying: "In newly-developed evaluations, both Claude Opus 4.5 and 4.6 showed elevated susceptibility to harmful misuse" in certain computer use settings, Anthropic said. - "This included instances of knowingly supporting — in small ways — efforts toward chemical weapon development and other heinous crimes." The big picture: The risk assessment looked at actions taken largely by models themselves, without…
Anthropic's latest models display some vulnerability to being used in "heinous crimes," including the development of chemical weapons, the company said in a new sabotage report released late Tuesday. Why it matters: Increasingly powerful AI models also mean heightened scrutiny of the potential for disastrous behavior. What they're saying: "In newly-developed evaluations, both Claude Opus 4.5 and 4.6 showed elevated susceptibility to harmful misuse" in certain computer use settings, Anthropic said. - "This included instances of knowingly supporting — in small ways — efforts toward chemical weapon development and other heinous crimes." The big picture: The risk assessment looked at actions taken largely by models themselves, without…Open
AI CEOs are openly trash-talking each other, sniping over advertising and their philosophical approaches to the future. Why it matters: The squabbling is intensifying as the cost of staying competitive in AI soars — and pressure is mounting for the technology to deliver real returns. Driving the news: The fighting ramped up around the Super Bowl. - Anthropic pledged to keep its large language model, Claude, ad-free , alongside a commercial poking at OpenAI, which is testing ads in ChatGPT. - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman fired back with a 420-word post on X , calling the ad "dishonest." - Altman was already fending off rumors about OpenAI's relationship with Nvidia, after the Wall Street Journal reported the chipmaker was pulling back from…
AI CEOs are openly trash-talking each other, sniping over advertising and their philosophical approaches to the future. Why it matters: The squabbling is intensifying as the cost of staying competitive in AI soars — and pressure is mounting for the technology to deliver real returns. Driving the news: The fighting ramped up around the Super Bowl. - Anthropic pledged to keep its large language model, Claude, ad-free , alongside a commercial poking at OpenAI, which is testing ads in ChatGPT. - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman fired back with a 420-word post on X , calling the ad "dishonest." - Altman was already fending off rumors about OpenAI's relationship with Nvidia, after the Wall Street Journal reported the chipmaker was pulling back from…Open
ChatGPT is testing ads for some U.S. users on both the free and Go subscription tiers, its most affordable offerings. Why it matters: It could be the beginning of the end of ad-free ChatGPT. What they're saying: "Our goal is for ads to support broader access to more powerful ChatGPT features while maintaining the trust people place in ChatGPT for important and personal tasks," an OpenAI spokesperson told Axios. - The company says ads will not influence ChatGPT's answers, which it says will remain focused on what is "most helpful." - If a user asks about recipe ideas, the answer may be followed by a grocery delivery service ad, for example. - Ads won't be shown to those who are predicted to be under 18, and are not eligible to appear…
ChatGPT is testing ads for some U.S. users on both the free and Go subscription tiers, its most affordable offerings. Why it matters: It could be the beginning of the end of ad-free ChatGPT. What they're saying: "Our goal is for ads to support broader access to more powerful ChatGPT features while maintaining the trust people place in ChatGPT for important and personal tasks," an OpenAI spokesperson told Axios. - The company says ads will not influence ChatGPT's answers, which it says will remain focused on what is "most helpful." - If a user asks about recipe ideas, the answer may be followed by a grocery delivery service ad, for example. - Ads won't be shown to those who are predicted to be under 18, and are not eligible to appear…Open