Whatever AI Safety Is, It’s Not This

The article argues that asking AI companies to regulate themselves on safety issues is ineffective. The author uses a historical analogy: the automotive industry claimed to voluntarily adopt safety features like seat belts in the 1960s, when in reality evidence showed many lives could have been saved if such regulations had been mandatory earlier. By extension, the piece suggests that self-regulation by AI companies is a way to appear to address safety concerns without actually accomplishing meaningful progress.