Last week we were panicking about a supposedly imminent AI apocalypse. Seven days later, Keith Teare argues, government oversight is about as far away as it could possibly be. That’s because Musk, Altman and Amodei agreed to police themselves and test each other’s models. The doomers, says the publisher of That Was The Week, have lost not just this week’s battle but probably the whole war.
So who will then write the AI rules? The people building the models, Keith says — as with California’s building codes, government sanctions the standards but engineers write them. And trust doesn’t come from authority, it comes from use. The real check on our new AI overlords, he promises, will come in court, with the American legal system holding OpenAI and Anthropic financially accountable for all damage. That should doom the doomers. If we survive the apocalypse, of course.
Five Takeaways
• The Week Regulation Went Away. Trump phoning Jensen Huang live on stage; Musk, Altman and Amodei agreeing to police themselves. Keith’s verdict: the call for government oversight is going to fade.
• Who Writes the Rules. Cohere’s Aidan Gomez asked whether Silicon Valley should set AI’s safety standards. Keith says yes — government sanctions building codes, but engineers write them.
• It Is You, Not the AI. Forget trust: the labs are already legally accountable for what their software does. “Up until now they’ve been saying, it’s not us, it’s the AI. Well, actually, no.”
• The Doomers Lose a Battle. Benedict Evans on the Hugging Face incident: turn off every safety system, the reactor blows up — but what exactly did you prove?
• San Francisco Isn’t Ready. The Anthropic IPO alone will weigh as much as every tech listing since Uber combined. The economy prospers; the city doesn’t.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Read That Was The Week: thatwastheweek.com
Chapters:
00:00:31 Introduction: Trump calls Jensen Huang, live
00:01:26 A decisive week — and the end of the regulation push
00:02:55 The New York Times map: speeders, regulators and shifting sands
00:05:11 Do the big CEOs have a sense of responsibility?
00:07:02 If not them, who do we trust?
00:08:00 Trust comes from usage — and the Hugging Face investigations
00:10:27 Aidan Gomez: who gets to define the rules?
00:11:14 The building code analogy
00:12:03 What should Washington actually be doing? Nothing yet
00:13:01 So we just trust Sam, Dario and Elon?
00:13:13 It is you, not the AI — and Palantir’s case for nationalization
00:14:52 Blind trust versus actual trust
00:15:34 Benedict Evans, Chernobyl and the reactor that blew up
00:17:44 Has the doomer movement hit a wall?
00:19:08 71% of Americans are worried — and why Keith discounts it
00:19:49 Reid Hoffman: time is running out to stop Americans hating AI
00:21:32 Is the case for AI actually being made?
00:23:18 Nick Hanauer’s market humanism
00:24:39 Bevan in modern dress — and what a modern narrative needs
00:26:49 Does the social contract survive AI?
00:28:07 Rich men of the left, and the thought vacuum
00:28:57 Interview of the week: Eric Zwick and the everywhere millionaires
00:30:43 Post of the week: San Francisco and the $2 trillion wave
00:33:13 Is San Francisco still the stage for the future?
00:33:56 The economy prospers, the city doesn’t
00:34:45 Daniel Lurie, the left, and the politics of victims