The White House says Anthropic is fearmongering. Anthropic says Washington\u2019s asleep at the wheel.<\/p>\n
At the center is a clash of philosophies: how much fear is \u201cappropriate\u201d when building technology that could transform \u2014 or destabilize \u2014 the world. The dispute came to public attention when Anthropic co-founder and head of policy, Jack Clark, published an essay arguing that policymakers are underestimating AI\u2019s existential risks.<\/p>\n
The essay argued that many people are \u201cpretending that AI cannot threaten humanity.\u201d It urged acknowledgment of a \u201cdifferent reality\u201d before the world can determine how to \u201ctame it and live together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House\u2019s AI adviser, David Sacks, hit back on X<\/a>, accusing the company of using safety concerns as a business strategy, stating, \u201cAnthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering.\u201d<\/p>\n Clark, who is a former technology journalist, found Sacks\u2019 criticism \u201cperplexing,\u201d according to a Bloomberg report. He asserted in an interview with the outlet that in \u201cmany areas we\u2019re extremely lined up with the admin.\u201d Still, he added that there are \u201csome areas where we have a slightly different view, and we articulate that view in a substantive, fact-forward way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He also questioned the lack of policy proposals from the administration, asking whether Sacks had \u201cpublished an approach for what federal regulation of AI could look like? Because he\u2019s saying that that\u2019s what\u2019s needed.\u201d<\/p>\n While both the company and the administration officially support some form of federal policy, their disagreement over state-level regulations has been a major source of tension.<\/p>\n The White House had previously thrown its weight behind a failed attempt to impose a ten-year hold on state-level AI legislation<\/a>, arguing that a \u201cpatchwork of state regulations\u201d would \u201csow chaos and slow innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n Anthropic called that proposed moratorium \u201ctoo blunt.\u201d Furthermore, the company notably stood apart from its industry peers by publicly endorsing California Senate Bill 53<\/a>, a landmark piece of legislation that imposes first-of-its-kind transparency rules and whistleblower protections on frontier AI developers.<\/p>\n This support for California\u2019s legislation appears to have been a key \u201ccatalyst for Sacks\u2019 outburst,\u201d as noted in Bloomberg\u2019s coverage<\/a>. Anthropic defended the move, with Clark reiterating that their preference was for a federal solution, but saying that since the federal government had failed to \u201cget its act together,\u201d the company had to act.<\/p>\n Axios highlights the overall picture<\/a>, noting that the fight is as much about state-level rules as it is about federal ones.<\/p>\n The friction extends beyond legislation and into the daily work of the government. According to a report from Semafor, Anthropic\u2019s strict usage policies have created headaches for federal law enforcement.<\/p>\n The company refuses to allow its AI models<\/a> to be used for \u201cdomestic surveillance,\u201d a policy that has led it to decline requests from contractors working with agencies like the FBI and Secret Service. Senior White House officials, speaking anonymously, told Semafor they believe Anthropic is making a \u201cmoral judgment\u201d<\/a> about law enforcement work.<\/p>\n This creates a practical problem. In some cases, Anthropic\u2019s Claude models are the only top-tier AI systems cleared for top-secret situations through the Amazon Web Services GovCloud system.\u00a0<\/p>\n This leaves contractors and agencies in a bind, with access to a powerful tool but being blocked from using it for specific investigative purposes.<\/p>\n This ongoing political friction, combined with the fact that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly supported Kamala Harris and has been \u201cabsent from White House tech events,\u201d according to Axios, places the company in an increasingly difficult political spot with the current administration.<\/p>\n Speaking of AI regulation: In June, US senators agreed to try to amend a bill that would bar states from regulating AI, <\/strong>proposing to shorten the moratorium from 10 years to five<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The post Anthropic Feud With the White House Exposes Deep Divide on AI Oversight<\/a> appeared first on eWEEK<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The White House says Anthropic is fearmongering. Anthropic says Washington\u2019s asleep at the wheel. At the center is a clash of philosophies: how much fear is \u201cappropriate\u201d when building technology that could transform \u2014 or destabilize \u2014 the world. The dispute came to public attention when Anthropic co-founder and head of policy, Jack Clark, published […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The California catalyst and state vs federal rules<\/h2>\n
Anthropic\u2019s rules frustrate federal agencies<\/h2>\n