Dire warnings about AI shock Congress, but action is unlikely before the election

WASHINGTON — In September 2023, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and other billionaire tech titans huddled with senators in the Capitol to discuss what Musk called the “civilizational risk” posed by artificial intelligence.

Three years later, those tech titans have all deepened their investments in AI, and Congress still has not passed any comprehensive legislation to rein in or create guardrails for the fast-moving technology. Even after countless committee hearings on AI and the formation of various commissions and task forces to study it, there’s not even any consensus in the House or Senate about how to tackle the issue.

That failure has been spotlighted in recent days as a trio of AI researchers at top companies dropped a bombshell, saying they had left their jobs over concerns that AI systems could spiral out of control and end humanity. Jacob Coxon, who resigned from Anthropic, wrote on X: “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, said Thursday that it had banned some accounts believed to be tied to foreign governments or militaries for conducting suspicious research that could support the development of…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business