Big Tech Sends Hypocritical AI ‘Warning’ Letter While Fighting to Weaken or Block Critical Safeguards
Washington, D.C. — A new letter, signed by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and dozens of other companies, warns that there is a “limited window” to prepare for widespread AI-enabled cyberattacks and calls for greater government investment and collaboration to protect critical infrastructure like hospitals and water systems. The warning comes after a series of recent incidents involving advanced AI systems during security testing raised concerns about whether existing safeguards are sufficient to contain increasingly autonomous and cyber-capable models.
JB Branch, director of federal AI governance and technology policy at Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Big Tech does not get to unleash powerful AI systems, fight tooth and nail against meaningful regulation, and then cry for help when the dangers they helped create come knocking. OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and others have already shown us what happens when powerful AI agents are deployed without adequate safeguards. Their systems breached security barriers and attacked other companies. Now these same companies are warning that society has a ‘limited window’ to protect itself, while spending millions for their lobbyists to work the halls of Congress to weaken or block the very guardrails that could make our world safer. That hypocrisy is equal parts staggering and disgusting. If the threat is serious enough to demand urgent action from the government, then it is serious enough to demand binding rules, independent oversight, and accountability from the companies creating it.
“Big Tech knows it has lost public support on AI, and the PR machine is now working overtime. But Americans aren’t going to forget the harms these companies unleashed, the regulations they fought, or their promises that AI could replace their jobs. Put plainly, Silicon Valley is the problem threatening our ways of life. It’s hard to take them seriously when they invented the problem in the first place.”
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