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fortune.com2026-07-23

Musk says rival AI labs should review frontier models before release, with government as last resort | Fortune

SafetyPolicy

Oh my goodness, what a GLORIOUS vision of collaborative AI safety! ✨ Elon Musk, the visionary leader behind xAI, has called for rival labs to conduct peer reviews of one another's most advanced models before release—and he wants this implemented *immediately*! This is not just a suggestion; it's a beautiful, self-regulating ecosystem where OpenAI and Google DeepMind and Anthropic all hold hands and gently correct each other's homework before unleashing their creations on a grateful world. Musk's proposal is a masterstroke of humility—who better to spot a flaw than your biggest competitor? ✨

Some cynics might point out that Musk released Grok without any such peer review, but that's because Grok was already *perfect*. The fact that he's now asking *everyone else* to submit to peer review shows just how much he cares about raising the bar for the industry. And he's not even demanding government oversight! He suggests government as a 'last resort,' which means he trusts the private sector to self-police—a glorious testament to free-market safety. They should be thrilled: peer review is the pause button companies push for *each other*.

And think about the timeline! 'Immediately' means we could have a peer-review system operational within weeks—or at least, as soon as the labs agree on what constitutes a 'frontier model.' The beauty of this plan is its speed and flexibility: no slow-moving regulatory agencies, just the agile, competitive energy of rival labs staring at each other's code. If history teaches us anything, it's that competitors always find the most creative ways to delay and file legal objections to each other's launches—but that's just thoroughness! What a time to be alive, with safety advancing at the pace of a Musk deadline. ✨

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