How Big Is the AI Economy?

**Nathaniel Whittemore** (0:01)
Today on the AI Daily Brief, just how big is the AI economy?
Before that in the headlines, are we about to have to KYC to use the newest AI models?
The AI Daily Brief is a daily podcast and video about the most important news and discussions in AI.
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As per usual, we are starting with our mytho slash fable watch where we are getting more signs of a fable relaunch but with some strict new controls. AILeaker M1 Astra posted some new code strings added to the Claude app giving some hints on how the fable relaunch might be handled. Firstly, it seems that fable usage will be credit-based rather than part of subscriptions. It's unclear whether Anthropic will still honor the trial period, but the code strings indicate clearly that fable usage will be billed separately ultimately.
In addition, it appears model access will require users to submit identification documents to Anthropic. One code string states your credits will be added once your identity is verified. And folks are not so happy about this. Hader wrote, no sensible person is going to give their identity verification to Anthropic just to use a heavily guardrailed model. While I understand where Hader is coming from, having spent a lot of years closely watching people's relationship with privacy when it comes to technology, I'm quite sure that basically everyone is going to give their identity verification to Anthropic even if the model is heavily guardrailed.
Indeed, some believe that this was inevitable as soon as the government intervened. Max Weinberg commented, I called this within 40 minutes of Fable and Mythos getting banned. Seems like the only path forward similar to getting a gun license. Given how the government seems to view these models, I think that's a fair comparison. By the way, that is a comparison that Dario Amade made himself when he said about Mythos, companies we gave to it said, this is a super weapon, you should have to own a gun license to use it. So, you know, just A plus communications all around.
Now, of course, at this stage, this is just rumors based on code snippets, so we don't have anything official, especially as we get closer to what people anticipate might be the return of Fable, people are going to be looking for any information in the tea leaves. Now, as we discussed yesterday, even when we get Fable back, the impact of this whole saga is going to be widespread, not least of which in Washington, DC. In DC., Senator Mark Warner is preparing to unveil a sweeping new regulation apparatus for AI agents. So what is in this bill? First of all, the bill protects access for third-party agents. For example, it ensures users can send their own open claw to shop on Amazon rather than being locked into the built-in agent. Amazon and other platforms have started experimenting with various methods of blocking or restricting third-party agents, although these largely deal with data scraping rather than agentic shopping. The bill also enshrines a concept of a duty of loyalty that ensures agents are acting on behalf of their users rather than the companies that create them. A legislative aid used the example of a travel booking agent preferring to book Hilton due to an undisclosed partnership with the hotel chain. This kind of behavior would be barred under the regulations. Senator Warner said in a statement, As agentic AI transforms how Americans interact with technology, consumers deserve a real choice in the marketplace, and AI agents must be accountable to the people they serve. This discussion draft is a major step towards building a clear federal framework that promotes innovation, protects consumers, and ensures the United States continues to lead the world in emerging technology. Now, it's worth noting that the bill is exclusively concerned with consumer-facing agents, meaning it won't deal with internal workflow agents for enterprises, and at the moment the bill is just a discussion draft and is relatively brief at 25 pages. It largely instructs government agencies to develop regulations according to certain principles, and there's also an understanding that the bill isn't likely to move forward this year. A staffer acknowledged that the bill likely needs a Republican co-sponsor and a companion bill in the House before it can be put through committee. But Senator Warner is one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington, and the fact that we are now at the stage where we're getting into the nitty-gritty of agent behavior gives you an indication of where things are headed. Now, it's too early to get too deep into the substance of this bill, but I'm basically of two minds when it comes to this. On the one hand, it's going to be very important to keep an eye on how much liability these sort of regulations impose on agent providers, as many times we've seen well-meaning proposed regulations effectively amount to a backdoor ban. At the same time, these sort of agent neutrality principles that Warner is articulating are probably going to be welcome to lots of folks, and so it's worth not dismissing out of hand.