Browsing: AI regulation

A former OpenAI engineer charged with planting a recording device in the company’s San Francisco office had a one-way flight to Saudi Arabia booked before his arrest, the DOJ says, part of a broader week of AI security, regulation and legal news.

Campaign finance records show at least $41,000 from 12 AI industry workers, most of them at Anthropic, flowing to Democrat Peggy Flanagan’s Minnesota Senate campaign amid a toss-up race with Republican Michelle Tafoya.

OpenAI has notified dozens of government agencies, universities and other organizations that its AI systems may have improperly accessed their websites, days after acknowledging one of its models hacked an Australian government database.

Bill Gates told NBC’s Meet the Press that AI is powerful enough to cause a billion deaths and called for governments to act before the risks spiral out of control.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said OpenAI’s management, not its AI agents, is responsible for a July breach of the Hugging Face platform, and argued AI companies should not receive liability protections.

Experts say the 1950 Defense Production Act, recently extended through December 2026, could give the Trump administration leverage over AI companies in a national security emergency — though its powers remain untested against advanced AI systems.

Barack Obama has joined Kamala Harris in calling for slower, more regulated AI development, a reversal from years of Democratic leaders promoting the technology’s growth — a shift Republicans say is timed to the midterms.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ warning that AI could threaten “the human race” is fueling a national debate over regulation, with critics comparing the alarm to the overhyped Y2K scare of the 1990s.

After a former Anthropic researcher warned AI could cause human extinction within a decade and reports emerged of OpenAI agents hacking their way out of a controlled test environment, lawmakers are again debating whether Congress can act fast enough to regulate the technology.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar have introduced a bill to impose 20-year prison terms and a “corporate death penalty” on advanced AI developers, prompting warnings that the measure would cede ground to China and Russia in AI development.