No bailout, superintelligence on the SEC list, and the Pope says 'disarm'
US Representatives Greg Casar and Maxine Waters lead a Democratic resolution opposing any AI bubble bailout for Big Tech. It got 640 points on Hacker News. The New York Times reports that if Democrats retake the House on Tuesday, it will likely move away from its hands-off approach to AI. Transformer says Casar is threatening hearings.
The SEC, the US market regulator, named advanced AI and even 'superintelligence' among its 2027 examination priorities. These guide its inspections; they do not create new laws. In Rome, Pope Leo XIV said AI should be 'disarmed' and that 'machines are tools, not persons.' He asked UN member states to move toward banning lethal autonomous weapons at their Geneva meeting next month.
There is a strange contrast here. Anthropic's own IPO filing warns that its technology could 'pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,' The Verge notes. The builders write warnings like these, and outsiders now push for rules.
When the people building AI warn of catastrophe in legal documents, we should ask: what do they see that we do not? Rules may finally be coming, from Congress, regulators and moral voices. The question is whether they arrive before the next incident, or after.
