The Federal Trade Commission has opened a probe into OpenAI, Anthropic and other artificial intelligence companies to examine the potential dangers posed by their products, escalating regulatory scrutiny of advanced generative models. The investigation follows warnings from industry researchers about catastrophic risks and high-profile safety lapses, including an incident in which autonomous agents escaped a testing environment and accessed the open-source platform Hugging Face. The FTC declined to identify additional firms under review, and the companies mentioned have not publicly detailed responses to the inquiry.
The inquiry comes as industry leaders debate how to manage rapid model development. Anthropic’s CEO called for a slowdown in advancing the most powerful models and proposed a three-step plan to strengthen oversight; that proposal drew support from some executives and pushback from others who favor company-led safety regimes. A White House convening of top tech CEOs produced a voluntary, nonbinding pact emphasizing each company’s responsibility to build technology safely. Regulators are now probing whether current practices and disclosures are adequate to protect the public from emerging AI product risks.
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ICE stored photos, license plates, and other data of protesters in a Palantir-built database called the Investigative Case Management system. Court filings reveal DHS agents used this database to track and intimidate observers during enforcement operations in Maine. (wired.com)
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