Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science & Technology, David Sacks, Talks AI Safety and Regulations

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

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Ed Ludlow (0:07)

The Frontier Labs say we need to pace advancement at the frontier. And in your post, you said, okay, do it yourselves.

But it kind of begs this central question of, why don't we need a government intervention? Why don't we need regulation in what those frontier labs propose to do?

David Sacks (0:26)

Well, the first point is, we look at the structure of the market for Frontier AI right now. We do have a duopoly situation.

By any metric, whether it is market share or revenue growth or model capabilities, there are basically two companies at the frontier, and that is Anthropic and OpenAI. And you have Dario and Sam have not both said, okay, let's pace the frontier to make sure our products are safe. My point is, guys, go ahead. I think if you feel that the right priority right now in your product mode map is to make your products more reliable, more trustworthy, more predictable, then you should do that. And by the way, they have every incentive to do this. Lena Kahn just came out with a statement that I very much agree with, where she said that the major AI companies are subject to product liability for their products. So when or if they release an unsafe product, they're massively liable for that. But this is very much in their business interest. I don't really believe that they're doing this or need to do this for altruistic reasons. I think every company in America needs its products when they release them to be safe. That's just a basic corporate responsibility. And if you don't, you're gonna be subject to all sorts of civil and maybe even criminal liability, as Lena Kahn was pointing out. So again, we're not bereft of laws and regulations in this country.

We have many laws, statutes, and regulations that apply to AI. For example, you cannot use AI to conduct a cyber attack. You cannot commit fraud. You cannot commit privacy violations. There's child safety regulations. And I'd say most importantly, we have product liability rules. So again, we have plenty of regulations here if the Frontier Labs release products that are unsafe. And again, I would turn it back to them. It's on you guys to make sure your products are safe. If you feel like you need to quote unquote, pace the Frontier to do that, go for it. Do that. You don't need anyone else's permission. And let me just make one other point on this. You know, they seem to be, not they, I think Dario basically said in his blog post that he needs an antitrust waiver. Well, no, you don't. You really don't. You should go ahead and make your products safe without demanding any concession from the government. You know, we don't believe that you should be free from competition. I'm sure every company in America would love to have that kind of deal.

You have a basic obligation to make your products safe. Do not demand antitrust waivers or liability waivers in exchange for that. Honestly, it feels like they're bartering with us, and I don't think they should do that. I think they should go ahead and do what they need to do to make sure their products are safe. And frankly, if they can't do that, if they can't make their own products safe, then I think the public is going to wonder why are they doing it?

And the public will suggest that they should step aside and make room for people who will do it safely.

Ed Ludlow (3:26)

David, in part through your post, but many have raised a question on regulatory capture, right? And one thing that indirectly Sam Altman and Dario Amadea agree on is that this pacing at the frontier only works if all of the frontier labs agree to do it together.

And in that regulatory capture concern, that's the other question is, well, should the government work in getting those people into the room to work together, or should they work to prevent that? In order to, you spoke about the cartel issue, for example, in your post.

David Sacks (4:00)

Well, again, if you look at the market share, for frontier intelligence, if you look at the revenue growth, there's really two companies that dominated. If you look at the model capabilities, Anthropic and OpenAI are probably about two-generate, what they have in the lab is about two-generations than everyone else.

So the others are trying to catch up, but the reality is they have a pretty substantial lead.

So if Dario and Sam both say that they're willing to slow down their development, and by the way, I don't think they're going to stop development. I think this is just a shift in priorities, where they're saying they're going to focus on, let's say reliability and predictability instead of raw power. Guys, go for it. You have every incentive to do that, you have liability to do that, and you have a pretty big lead in the market. So I don't really believe this claim that they can't make their product safe unless the government steps in and imposes requirements on companies that aren't even at the frontier. Again, this feels like an excuse to me. It feels like bartering. It feels like they are trying to demand concessions from the government in order to meet their basic corporate responsibility, and I just don't buy it.