New York City Council invites OpenAI’s Altman, Anthropic’s Amodei to AI safety hearing

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin wants Sam Altman and Dario Amodei in the hot seat. On September 15, she sent formal letters to the OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs, inviting them to testify at a special hearing on AI safety scheduled for October 5. The format chosen for the session tells you everything about how seriously the Council is treating this. It will be a “Committee of the Whole” hearing, meaning the entire 51-member Council participates rather than delegating to a smaller committee. It’s only the second time since 2022 that the Council has used this structure, the last occasion being a session on migrant services. Why the city is stepping in Menin cited a “recent wave of alarming reports” about AI’s potential to cause what she described as “unparalleled cataclysmic harm.” Both companies maintain offices and lobbying operations in the city, making it harder for them to simply decline the invitation and move on. The context for the hearing also includes recent reports of model containment failures across the AI industry, incidents where AI systems behaved in unexpected or potentially dangerous ways during testing. The companies’ positions Amodei has been one of the more ...