White House’s Kevin Hassett says private sector is key to solving AI threats

Kevin Hassett, head of the White House National Economic Council, made the case this week that AI safety is a problem best solved by the companies building the technology, not by a new layer of federal bureaucracy. In interviews conducted between September 13 and 15, Hassett pointed to a proposal from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as a model worth watching. Amodei has been pushing for independent oversight structures embedded within AI companies themselves. Hassett described the concept as crucial for coordinating safety efforts between government and industry before advanced AI models get released into the wild. The private sector as safety inspector Hassett’s core argument is straightforward: the private sector has been making meaningful progress on AI safety, and that progress qualifies as “a good step forward.” Back in May, Hassett floated the idea of a potential executive order that would establish a safety-testing roadmap for AI models. Senior officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, are reportedly coordinating efforts to test Anthropic’s Mythos model. President Trump has consistently downplayed AI risks while simultaneously framing AI dominance as a geopolitical i...