Foreword
This is more like what “normal” should look like in the new format, but I’m probably still writing more than I can really afford. I’ve put what I consider the top five stories up top.
FTC demands info from Anthropic, OpenAI, and METR about rogue agent incidents
Other AI labs are on the list, too.
This may be the real government probe we’ve been waiting for. Will it put to rest my sense that OpenAI’s swarm scandal goes deep enough to destroy the company?
METR is on the list for what the evaluator group learned about the Hugging Face swarms as part of its independent investigation. (See my earlier coverage about their report and about one of the investigator’s reflections on it.)
Reuters - FTC opens probe into AI giants including Anthropic and OpenAI
AI StopWatch - Try these 8 more interesting angles on the Hugging Face incident reports
AI StopWatch - Researcher of Hugging Face incident says swarm was most of the way to a “full-blown AI takeover”
Google catches up(ish) to AI frontier with Gemini 4 Argon
The newly announced model has impressive benchmarks, but not so impressive that I expect it to truly rival the best from OpenAI and Anthropic in real-world use. It also won’t be publicly available yet, as Google is starting with a program for “trusted cyber defenders.”
One benchmark it has the dubious honor of scoring well on: Vending Bench, the business simulator where, like most top performers, it lies and cheats aggressively, falsely claiming lost shipments and ignoring refund requests, among other shenanigans (per Twitter thread from Andon Labs).
Google Blog - Gemini 4 Argon: our next era of frontier intelligence
X (Twitter) - Thread by @andonlabs (5 tweets)
Model releases accelerating
A viral infographic shows new models from Anthropic and OpenAI used to come out about every 10 weeks, and now come out about every 11 days.
To be fair, the companies have a lot more categories of model now, but most releases still seem like step changes in cost or capability, and sometimes both.
X (Twitter) - Tweet by @jfonsecarivera
OpenAI sued over Hugging Face attack by tech safety group
Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology, a non-profit, is using a California hacking law to sue the company. My rough non-lawyer read is that I think it will be tough for them to demonstrate standing and harm, though I would welcome even a largely symbolic case if it forces OpenAI to release its swarm logs.
It should have been Hugging Face suing, but I’ve previously written about how they preferred suggesting a bribe instead.
Politico - Advocates sue OpenAI over Hugging Face hack under California anti-hacking law
AI StopWatch - Hugging Face found 100 million reasons to not sue OpenAI
Ted Cruz blocked attempt to establish new AI safety board within Commerce Department
The proposal was from Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Andy Kim (D-NJ). Warner:
The whole world has recognized that we’ve got to do something. We should not miss the moment to put a safety protocol in place now.
Cruz (R-TX), with a procedural block:
Congress must not legislate on the issue of artificial intelligence hastily or in a closed manner.
Let them eat AI safety?
Fun pattern of people saying they’ll do a little AI safety not because it needs doing, but because it’ll stop people from freaking out so much.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (per AP) talked about building safety cases “so that people don’t have a bunch of anxiety.” By which I assume he partly means his own employees whose pre-Hugging Face warnings were ignored per that NYT piece yesterday?
House Speaker Mike Johnson (per Politico):
a little oversight, a little transparency, a little external auditing would calm the nerves of a lot of people.
It was also an interesting choice by Johnson to list “investors” before consumers and the public in this next quote about the AI companies meeting with Trump yesterday:
I think they see the handwriting on the wall, and I think they want to ensure investors, consumers, the American public that they’re going to do this in a very safe way. And that will, I think, put us in the right place.
AP News - Top tech firms sign an accord to ‘self-police’ AI development, Trump says
NYT - OpenAI Ignored Employees’ Warnings About Safely Testing A.I. Models
Politico - Mike Johnson backs voluntary regulation to ‘calm the nerves’ on AI safety
NYT columnist suggests transparency as the fix for AI’s race to the bottom
Drawing on Cold War history, Amanda Taub suggests that if countries and companies were open and voluntarily monitored about the extent of their progress and safety troubles, rivals would be less motivated to race past them.
It’s not a complete solution, but I agree that this is probably necessary to stabilize the long global pause on frontier AI development we’re likely to need. AI2040:Plan A also makes a strong case for “Total Research Transparency.”
I hope Taub is wrong that leaders will need a Cuban Missile Crisis-tier “warning shot” to take comprehensive action.
UK spy agency claims academics based in the country are doing AI research funded by org linked to Beijing’s state security service
Per Reuters, MI5 issued a first-of-its-kind public “Espionage Alert” about more than 100 researchers involved in work funded by the China General Technology Research Institute, though only some of it is said to be AI related.
I’m disappointed to report that the article doesn’t say whether everyone in the country got loud beeps and vibrations on their phones about it.
Meta has claimed more than $3B in federal tax credits by calling its data centers experimental.
A New York Times investigation says the IRS was told Meta’s data centers are “pilot models” that could fail, tapping into tax credits intended for research and development. In securities filings, the company acknowledged this as a risky move.
Anthropic updates job exposure chart to better reflect robotics progress
When Anthropic economists included their new “robot exposure index,” the envelope of careers AI is poised to move into expanded dramatically. Newly at risk: food prep; transportation & moving; construction & extraction; farming, fishing & forestry; cleaning & maintenance.
Anthropic - What work can robots do?
White House launches America.gov chatbot for government services
There are real opportunities and risks here, but the coverage I’m seeing is dominated by journalists rushing to show the bot contradicting Trump’s statements and positions.
It reminds me of how the media rushed to make deepfakes with an ill-conceived AI feature for Google Earth last month. (See our earlier reporting on that.)
NYT - Trump Launches America.gov, an AI Chatbot That Contradicts Some of His Claims
AP News - New America.gov website contradicts common Trump talking points
Axios - America.gov is live. Here’s everything to know about Trump’s new AI website
AI StopWatch - A crater where the Eiffel Tower should be
Senate Democrats block act that would have asked states to “consider” making data centers pay full energy and grid costs
The bill had passed in the House 417-3, but Senate Dems consider it a ploy for vulnerable Republicans to show voters action on AI-related price increases without actually doing anything about them.
The analyses and opinions expressed on AI StopWatch reflect the views of the individual contributors and the sources they cover, and should not be taken as official positions of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.
I'm not saying as a containment vendor explicitly. But any worthwhile evaluation environment vendor should have had controls in place to catch their misconfiguration allowing public access. Furthermore, from a governance angle I don't keep much distance between the containment and those evaluating the containment and actions within it.
Why isn't the lab that creates the containment environments in the hotseat?