In Other News · United States · Business

Source: Axios

Top executives at Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI companies are privately gaming out scenarios for a public and political revolt after a catastrophic AI event.Why it matters: These officials anticipate a large-scale event, most likely a cyberattack, that shuts down access to financial services, internet connectivity, or even power and water.The first example of significant real-world harm caused by unsafe AI would turn an already wary public further against the technology and its leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, as well as President Trump for reluctance to regulate it.The risk: While scenario planning is common within many companies and national security settings — the Pentagon has been running war games for decades — the difference is that many top AI researchers and executives believe a major incident is inevitable."OpenAI conducts preparedness exercises where teams discuss and work through a range of potential scenarios," a company spokesperson said. "These scenarios are not treated as inevitable, but are meant to help us prepare for a variety of circumstances."Anthropic declined to comment. Zoom in: The blame game will start whether a rogue-agent swarm breaks containment from an internal testing environment or a bad actor finds unexpected ways to...