Washington balks at giving AI firms waiver to create safety standard

Ferguson said: "if companies are simultaneously coming to Washington and asking for a host of regulations and an antitrust exemption, all of my alarm bells go off."

The request came from Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei. Amodei wrote that AI companies "can and should voluntarily work together to set standards." He also wrote that the U.S. government should issue a "narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations."

Both Ferguson and Cruz are described in the article as skeptical of granting the waiver. The excerpt does not specify the scope of the waiver Amodei requested, which companies would participate in the safety conversations it would cover, or any timeline for a decision on the request. The excerpt also does not state whether a formal proposal has been submitted to any federal agency. No waiver is reported as having been granted.