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Tech News
A major cryptocurrency market-structure bill known as the Clarity Act has failed to advance, even after the industry poured hundreds of millions of dollars into lobbying efforts to secure its passage. The setback leaves crypto firms without the clearer federal rules they had hoped would settle long-running regulatory disputes.
Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, Satya Nadella, and Elon Musk recently joined together in urging that AI development be slowed and regulated before humans lose control. Commentary notes this isn't new: thinkers from Samuel Butler in the 1800s to Alan Turing in 1951 and Bill Joy in 2000 have similarly warned about machines outpacing and endangering humanity.
The US Senate failed to muster the 60 votes needed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a bill meant to divide crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC. Democrats blocked the measure over inadequate ethics provisions limiting officials, including President Trump, from profiting off crypto ventures while in office. Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, and Solana all dropped following the vote.
Speaking at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said AI is simply hardware and software built by humans, not some uncontrollable alien intelligence, and therefore doesn't require new laws to manage its risks. He argued that market forces alone will push companies to self-regulate, urging firms to pause releases if they're unsure about a product's safety rather than waiting for legal mandates.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said artificial intelligence does not require new laws or government oversight, arguing instead that decisions on releasing AI products should rest with the executives running AI companies. His comments came at a Salesforce conference in San Francisco, amid mounting warnings from other industry figures about AI's potential dangers to humanity.
Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist, and Senator Bernie Sanders have publicly aligned on an unlikely issue: both warn that unchecked artificial intelligence development could pose catastrophic dangers to society. Despite their sharply opposing politics, the two are calling on Washington to move quickly to impose regulatory limits on AI systems.
A New York Times/Siena University poll of 1,503 likely voters conducted in early September found 61 percent opposed building data centers for AI, with only 14 percent strongly supportive. Opposition skewed heavily among Harris voters and non-voters, while 2024 Trump voters were nearly evenly split between support and opposition. Environmental and water-use concerns topped the list of reasons for opposition, followed by community impact and general distrust of AI.
A Senate procedural vote to advance the Clarity Act failed 50-49, short of the 60 votes needed, halting progress on legislation meant to create a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets. Republicans had added ethics provisions over the weekend to address Democratic concerns about officials profiting from crypto ventures, but the changes failed to win over enough Democrats, including negotiator Sen. Ruben Gallego, who said the ethics compromise was insufficient.
Former President Barack Obama said he does not view artificial intelligence with alarmist pessimism, positioning himself between AI optimists and doomsayers. He aligned with a cohort of liberal politicians who advocate cautious oversight of AI development rather than either unchecked growth or outright fear-driven restriction.
At the All-in Summit in Los Angeles, Elon Musk suggested that leading AI developers—including his own xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and several major Chinese firms—allow competitors to run safety evaluations, or a 'test harness,' on each other's models before public release. The idea follows a weekend of warnings from AI executives including Anthropic's Dario Amodei about the risks of unchecked model development, with Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman backing calls for a slowdown.
President Trump used Truth Social to reject growing calls from AI executives for stronger oversight of the technology, singling out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for criticism after Amodei urged a coordinated industry slowdown, independent audits, and international safety standards. Trump argued that the only safeguard AI needs is a competent president, and characterized nationwide protests against AI data centers as a coordinated effort to undermine American tech companies.
The European Union is preparing the EU Kids Act, a proposed law that goes beyond social media to limit children's access to video platforms, chatbots and online games. Under the draft, minors would face tiered restrictions by age, ranging from no access for under-3s to parent-supervised accounts and eventual independent access at 15, with mandatory age checks before signup or download.