Washington is resisting calls to slow artificial intelligence. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has asked the US government to regulate AI companies as part of a wider effort to control the technology’s development. The White House seems unlikely to oblige.
Amodei published his essay on Saturday, September 13, 2026, arguing that AI’s growth has become “exponential” and calling that pace a “warning sign.” He told CBS News last week that “there are real dangers” in developing artificial intelligence and that “the industry lied” about its risks.
His proposal is not a request to freeze AI research. Amodei wants the government to let competing AI companies work together on shared standards without breaching antitrust law, while helping establish international coordination that includes the Chinese Communist Party.
That last part runs directly into Washington’s central fear: slowing down could hand the lead to China. David Sacks said China is very unlikely to join a global agreement, and the US government has mostly pushed back against measures that might reduce the pace of AI development.
Safety proposals meet a national race
Donald Trump made the administration’s position clear during a visit to Ireland on September 14, 2026. “We’re leading China on AI, and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins,” Trump said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson offered the same argument in congressional terms: “If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American.” The message is simple, even if the policy problem is not — regulation is framed as a strategic liability.
Trump dismissed the need for a new push, saying the industry already has “tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power” over it. He also wrote, “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”
Trump also criticized Amodei directly, saying, “The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’.” On the same day, he wrote, “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!”
AI companies ask for oversight on their own terms
Amodei’s position has drawn support from Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, owner of chatbot Grok. Altman committed to Amodei’s proposal for embedded third-party evaluators, who would receive employee-level access to check whether AI practices and products are safe.
That support has not convinced Vice President JD Vance. In remarks about frontier AI companies asking the government to regulate them, Vance said he felt “a little bit weird” about the request and called it a possible “Trojan horse.” He acknowledged that AI has risks and benefits, but said the government must be careful.
Amodei’s concern is not limited to corporate compliance. A former Anthropic researcher warned that AI could grow “smart enough to kill us,” adding a stark edge to the debate over whether existing oversight can keep pace with the systems companies are building.
The dispute now rests on two competing claims. Amodei argues that the risks demand shared standards, third-party checks, and international coordination; Trump, Johnson, and Vance argue that regulation could weaken the US position against China.
That leaves the AI industry asking for guardrails while the administration warns that guardrails could become a surrender. The technology keeps moving, because apparently even existential risk needs to win a geopolitical footrace.
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