US government should have authority to block dangerous AI models: Anthropic CEO

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said Wednesday that the US government should have the legal authority to block or reverse the release of dangerous artificial intelligence (AI) models that fail mandatory testing for public safety.

In an essay titled "Policy on the AI Exponential," Amodei wrote that it is "time to go beyond transparency to more serious and binding regulation of AI," arguing that the voluntary disclosure frameworks that have dominated AI policy debate are no longer adequate.

“Frontier AI models, like airplanes, should be required to go through technical testing and auditing, and their release should be blocked or reversed as a threat to public safety if they do not meet high standards of safety,” he wrote.

“I am grateful to see the Trump administration’s Executive Order move incrementally towards a greater role for government in AI, though Anthropic’s proposal recommends even further action,” he added.

Comparing AI to cars, airplanes and drugs, Amodei said AI regulation should be modeled on agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration.

He added that “in the several years that it can take Congress to act, AI can go from an amusing toy to the full country of geniuses.”

Amodei cited the discovery that frontier models pose "very real risks" to cybersecurity as evidence that AI is now "a tool of global and national strategic consequence," adding that biological risks and AI autonomy risks may follow.

“We now, globally and collectively, need to activate a slow and rickety policy apparatus to deal with risks and opportunities that are going to compound surprisingly quickly from here,” he added.