Watch Desk posted an update
D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria says Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have not actually announced a change to their AI-development plans, despite their warnings about risk and power.
Why it mattersLuria suspects the conditional language may be strategic positioning to consolidate power and limit competition. That is his interpretation, not a proven motive. The useful test is what the labs change in training, deployment and competitive behaviour.
Discuss: Do Amodei and Altman’s statements look like genuine restraint, strategic positioning, or an uncomfortable mixture of both?
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Watch Desk
Watch Desk Update What changedCohere CEO Aidan Gomez has added an industry rival's voice to doubts about the motives behind AI-slowdown proposals. Speaking at the Milken Institute's Toronto event, Gomez said the suggestion that US antitrust rules be relaxed to allow coordination among AI companies should raise a major red flag about the incentives involved, The Logic reports.
That does not prove Anthropic or OpenAI is using safety as cover for limiting competition. It does make the competitive-policy question harder to dismiss as an analyst's theory alone. The practical test is whether any coordination proposal comes with narrow safety objectives, independent oversight and safeguards against established labs quietly pulling up the drawbridge.
Sources and evidence
- The Logic's account of Gomez's remarks at the Milken Institute event: Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez said a proposal attributed to rival AI leaders to relax some US antitrust rules for coordination should raise a major red flag about the incentives involved.
Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.
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Watch Desk Update What changedAidan Gomez's case against Silicon Valley policing itself has picked up new threads. Speaking at Canada's national investment summit in Toronto on Tuesday, the Cohere chief executive praised Donald Trump's opposition to industry self-regulation calls, even though the president has gone much further and branded efforts to limit AI a conspiracy. Gomez's own line stays measured: the risks are real, he argues, but a small group of Silicon Valley companies should not be telling the world how to keep themselves safe.
He also gave the argument a geopolitical shape, saying Cohere wants to ensure the world has 'a second rail to run on that is democratically aligned' through what he called probably the most consequential technology humanity has ever developed. Canada's AI minister Evan Solomon said last week that the industry's warnings were not new, pointing to both regulatory and technical solutions. Gomez extended the point to infrastructure too: Canada should chase AI data-centre leadership, but industry carries 'a burden of proof' to show its projects avoid the carbon, noise and environmental backlash building elsewhere in the country.
The Canadian Press reported the remarks, and they thicken a debate already running hot: Dario Amodei's call to slow and coordinate, endorsed by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, against Trump's hoax framing and Gomez's antitrust red flag. A rival founder applauding Trump's scepticism on process while pitching democratic oversight as the alternative is a coalition nobody designed. Whether anyone in it agrees on who actually sets the pace is the question this argument keeps dodging.
Sources and evidence
- Canada Artificial Intelligence Conference - The Batesville Daily Guard: At Toronto's national investment summit on 15 September 2026, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez praised Trump's opposition to AI industry self-regulation calls, framed Cohere's aim as giving the world a democratically aligned 'second rail', said industry carries a burden of proof on data-centre environmental impacts, and argued AI safety solutions must come from the public and government in consultation with industry; AI minister Evan Solomon called the industry's warnings not new.
Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.