Silicon Valley leaders including White House AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks and OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon caused a stir online this week for their comments about groups promoting AI safety. In separate instances, they alleged that certain advocates of AI safety are not as virtuous as they appear, and are either acting in the interest of themselves or billionaire puppet masters behind the scenes.
AI safety groups that spoke with TechCrunch say the allegations from Sacks and OpenAI are Silicon Valley’s latest attempt to intimidate its critics, but certainly not the first. In 2024, some venture capital firms spread rumors that a California AI safety bill, SB 1047, would send startup founders to jail. The Brookings Institution labeled the rumor as one of many “misrepresentations” about the bill, but Governor Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed it anyway.
Whether or not Sacks and OpenAI intended to intimidate critics, their actions have sufficiently scared several AI safety advocates. Many nonprofit leaders that TechCrunch reached out to in the last week asked to speak on the condition of anonymity to spare their groups from retaliation.
The controversy underscores Silicon Valley’s growing tension between building AI responsibly and building it to be a massive consumer product — a theme my colleagues Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and I unpack on this week’s Equity podcast. We also dive into a new AI safety law passed in California to regulate chatbots, and OpenAI’s approach to erotica in ChatGPT.
On Tuesday, Sacks wrote a post on X alleging that Anthropic — which has raised concerns over AI’s ability to contribute to unemployment, cyberattacks, and catastrophic harms to society — is simply fearmongering to get laws passed that will benefit itself and drown out smaller startups in paperwork. Anthropic was the only major AI lab to endorse California’s Senate Bill 53 (SB 53), a bill that sets safety reporting requirements for large AI companies, which was signed into law last month.
Sacks was responding to a viral essay from Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark about his fears regarding AI. Clark delivered the essay as a speech at the Curve AI safety con …