Anthropic urges US states to tighten AI rules faster

In short: Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, is pushing US states to pass stronger AI safety rules, even after supporting new state laws last year.

What's going on

Anthropic supported some of the first state laws aimed at “frontier” AI systems last year. “Frontier” AI is a term for the most advanced AI models, the ones that can handle a wide range of tasks and are improving quickly.

Those efforts helped secure new transparency requirements in California and New York. Transparency rules are like nutrition labels for AI, they can require companies to explain things like what a model can do, what its limits are, and how it was tested.

Many tech companies opposed these laws. They argued the rules could slow down AI development and business growth. Anthropic took the opposite view and publicly backed the first wave of state action.

Now Anthropic says those laws may already be outdated. The company’s head of US state and local policy argues that the technology is moving so fast that states may need tougher and faster updates to their rules.

What to watch

More states may consider AI bills that go beyond transparency and add stronger requirements for testing and reporting. The key question is whether lawmakers can write rules that keep up with fast-changing AI systems, without creating a patchwork of different rules across the country.

Source: Wired