Kamal Ghorui
The OpenAI and Anthropic Cold War has come to Illinois, one of America’s biggest states. Sam Altman’s OpenAI and Dario Amodei’s Anthropic are clashing over a proposed Illinois law that would allow AI labs largely off the hook for mass deaths and financial disasters. The Senate Bill 3444 essentially would shield AI labs from liability if their systems are used to cause large-scale harm, like mass casualties or more than $1 billion in property damage.The fight is over the Senate Bill 3444 that has been authored by Democratic Senator Bill Cunningham. While Anthropic has come out against the proposed Illinois law, OpenAI is backing the bill, exposing the strong political divisions between two leading US AI labs.
What is Illinois Senate Bill 3444
According to the summary of the Bill, “It creates the Artificial Intelligence Safety Act. Provides that a developer of a frontier artificial intelligence model shall not be held liable for critical harms caused by the frontier model if the developer did not intentionally or recklessly cause the critical harms and the developer publishes a safety and security protocol and transparency report on its website. Provides that a developer shall be deemed to have complied with these requirements if the developer: (1) agrees to be bound by safety and security requirements adopted by the European Union; or (2) enters into an agreement with an agency of the federal government that satisfies specified requirements. Sets forth requirements for safety and security protocols and transparency reports. Provides that the Act shall no longer apply if the federal government enacts a law or adopts regulations that establish overlapping requirements for developers of frontier models.”
What is OpenAI saying
According to OpenAI, Senate Bill 3444 reduces the risk of serious harm from frontier AI systems while “still allowing this technology to get into the hands of the people and businesses—small and big—of Illinois.” The ChatGPT maker says it has worked with states like New York and California to create what is calls a “harmonized” approach to regulating AI. OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois said in a statement, “In the absence of federal action, we will continue to work with states—including Illinois—to work toward a consistent safety framework.” It added, “We hope these state laws will inform a national framework that will help ensure the US continues to lead.”Incidentally, OpenAI also publicly backed a piece of AI safety legislation in California that, while it added transparency requirements for frontier model makers, did not implement any liability laws that the companies could face.
What is Anthropic saying
In an email to WIRED, an Anthropic spokesperson confirmed the company’s opposition to Senate Bill 3444 and said that it has held promising conversations with Cunningham about using the bill as a starting point for future AI legislation. “We are opposed to this bill. Good transparency legislation needs to ensure public safety and accountability for the companies developing this powerful technology, not provide a get-out-of-jail-free card against all liability,” Cesar Fernandez, Anthropic’s head of US state and local government relations, said in a statement. “We know that Senator Cunningham cares deeply about AI safety, and we look forward to working with him on changes that would instead pair transparency with real accountability for mitigating the most serious harms frontier AI systems could cause.”
