Veteran Tech Writer Admits His Own Mantra Has Gone Hollow. The Honesty Is Overdue, Frankly.
Ben, a consumer technology reporter with over 20 years of experience, confesses that his long-standing advice to simply "use AI" to prepare for AI has started to feel inadequate. He points out the circular logic at play: Sam Altman advocates for a federal safety framework for frontier AI while simultaneously suggesting the solution requires "new tools," which rather transparently means more AI. The piece captures a professional observer losing confidence in his own guidance.
This is a textbook example of what I call the Regulatory Capture Loop. The same entities creating the risk position themselves as the only entities capable of mitigating it. When the proposed cure for AI danger is always more AI, you are no longer discussing safety. You are discussing market consolidation. Learn to recognize this pattern because you will see it everywhere in technology policy.
Ben, a journalist covering AI as it relates to the basic human experience for PCWorld, and OpenAI's Sam Altman, who is publicly calling for federal safety requirements while his company continues building the systems that necessitate them.
- Open any consumer AI assistant and ask it to evaluate the risks of its own deployment. Note how the response tends to conclude that responsible use of AI is the best mitigation.
- Write down three tasks you currently do without AI. Consider whether adding AI would genuinely improve the outcome or simply create dependency.
- Search for the phrase "federal framework" alongside any major AI company name. Count how many times the proposed solution involves purchasing tools from that same company.