OpenAI and Anthropic oversold AI security breaches to pressure

There are two ways to read the news that OpenAI and Anthropic sounded the alarm about their own “rogue AI” security breaches. One is that the people running these companies genuinely think their machines are a threat to humanity. The other, much more believable version, is that they found a great way to get Washington to do them a favor.

The Post reports that tech insiders now describe those supposed incidents as glorified glitches. Not sinister escapes, not machines outsmarting their creators. Just bugs. That matters, because these same companies have been running around D.C. with a very convenient message: regulate us, and only us. This is a lovely business model. Scare the politicians, get friendly rules, and make sure nobody else can play in your sandbox.

Real AI risks exist, and we’re not dismissing them out of hand. But when the companies who profit from fear are the ones insisting on a seat at the regulatory table, you have to wonder who exactly they’re protecting. The “bad guys” in their story are usually either competitors or open source projects they can’t control. That’s not security policy. That’s rent-seeking with a press release.

Conservatives should be naturally skeptical of any industry that asks for more government as a way to stay on top. If this White House wants to live up to its America First promise, it should treat these claims like what they are: lobbying dressed up as alarms. Silicon Valley doesn’t need a seat at the table to write the rules. It needs somebody to tell them no.