Transformer Weekly: Cruz’s latest messaging bill, Google employee outrage, and Elon goes to court
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Housekeeping: the Weekly Briefing is taking a week off next week; we’ll have some longer-form essays for you instead.
NEED TO KNOW #
Sens. Ted Cruz andBrian Schatz introduced theCHATBOT Act— a child-safety bill that seems to be more of a messaging bill than anything else.** Googlesigned a deal with the Pentagon**, blindsiding and enraging some employees.The
Elon Musk vs.OpenAI trial kicked off.
But first…
THE BIG STORY #
The US government is finally regulating AI model deployment — sort of.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House has asked Anthropic not to further expand access to Mythos, seemingly due to concerns about its cyber capabilities getting into the wrong hands, and worries that Anthropic does not have enough compute to adequately serve more customers while also providing the model to the US government.
It looks a lot like the government is now in the business of controlling AI deployment.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Models such as Mythos appear to have national-security relevant capabilities. As I argued last week, private companies should not unilaterally decide how such capabilities are deployed.
But the White House’s ad-hoc intervention on Mythos is an extremely sub-optimal solution. It has no specific authority to block model deployment, and no concrete thresholds for when to do so. It is not acting on the basis of any law — it is simply playing it by ear.
Anthropic, meanwhile, could theoretically have ignored the White House’s request; the government’s leverage is the threat of worsening an already patchy relationship. The result is what Dean Ball, former AI advisor to the Trump administration, calls “an informal, highly improvised licensing regime.”
This is what happens in the absence of actual regulation. For years, researchers and policy analysts have been warning that models would become relevant to national security, proposing countless frameworks for how governments should respond. But legislators at both the state and federal level failed to act quickly enough, while figures in the Trump administration have regularly dismissed the idea of regulation altogether. Rather than a clear set of rules, we instead have critical business decisions guided entirely by vibes. Trump supporters may be happy with this level of executive discretion under the current admin; if Democrats win in 2028, they certainly won’t be.
There is still time to get this right. Nothing spurs Congress into action like a crisis; the White House unilaterally making decisions about AI deployment might count as one. This may be the first time the government has had to make a decision about who gets access to dangerous AI capabilities, but it won’t be the last. It can’t keep making it up as it goes along.
— Shakeel Hashim
ALSO NOTABLE #
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, widely understood as the White House’s point person on AI legislation, introduced a child safety bill this week called the CHATBOT Act. The bill would require chatbot developers to put in place parental controls and limit access to users under 13 to family accounts. Two other key AI power brokers, Democrats Brian Schatz and Adam Schiff, are on the bill as well.
The bill has massive carve outs, however. It exempts chatbot developers from liability in any instances where they have only context clues, rather than definitive evidence, that a user is too young. And its restrictions on advertising don’t apply to ads that come any time after a prompt is issued.
The loopholes have bereaved parents suggesting the bill caters to “Big Tech.” But sources on both sides of the AI safety debate — including one who has discussed it with one of its authors — say the bill isn’t likely to get floor time. It’s meant only to signal willingness to tackle child safety legislation — at best, to start work on the specifics, at worst to keep up the political charade while keeping more substantive legislative guardrails at bay.
Skeptics point out that introducing weak AI safety legislation creates a win-win for the accelerationist industry lobby. If Congress moves with its characteristic slowness, no guardrails at all come into force. But if it does take the opportunity to at least be seen to do something about AI — in this case something purportedly addressing the hot button, MAGA-friendly topic of child safety — it narrows the scope of debate. If a chatbot bill clears Congress, politicians could say they took action, leaving thornier issues (cybersecurity, autonomous weapons, job automation, even x-risk) mired in partisan gridlock. This is likely why Cruz voted in support of Senator Josh Hawley’s more stringent GUARD Act (with some red lines) on Thursday, too.
— Veronica Irwin
THIS WEEK ON TRANSFORMER #
—The AI safety movement needs normiesCelia Ford on why a broader base may be the only way for the AI safety field to get what it wants—Google’s Pentagon deal blindsided its own AI researchersCelia Ford reports on the response to Google’s “all lawful uses” agreement with the DoD
THE DISCOURSE #
Anton Leicht worries that, as AI policy goes mainstream, it will become more … well, political:
“Salience-fishing is a volatility-raising play, and you should treat it as one.”
“You can’t fight salience, and you can’t change politics … [but] some advocates have chosen a recklessly accelerationist approach to political salience that has awakened a dynamic they can no longer control.”
**Alexander McCoy **countered: “There is a fundamental ‘anti-politics’ that holds a lot of sway in AI circles, which lacks sufficient faith in democracy as a system, and in ordinary people to understand their own self-interest, and is thus quite pessimistic about what impact ordinary people being more engaged will have.”
**Holly Buck **argued left-wing support for data center moratoriums is misguided: “[A moratorium] will not halt [AI] development; it will simply change the geopolitics of its development, the strategies of AI companies, and who is able to access AI services.”
**Aaron Regunberg **pushed back against the whole *‘we need actual AI governance, not a moratorium’ *thing: “A moratorium isn’t the end goal — it’s the only leverage we have to force real democratic control over artificial intelligence.”
“The problem is that Big Tech’s private (and unpopular) investment in data centers is moving at an astounding pace and we don’t have the time or leverage to establish the regulatory framework necessary to make this system work for the public.”
**Brian Merchant **also published some guidance for the left: “Tech utopianists and abundists view AI as a potentially equalizing, even liberating force, but history shows us that without political intervention or strong unions, those with the power to deploy labor-saving automation technologies at scale, to use it as leverage against workers who cannot, will themselves concentrate the gains from productivity increases.”
“The left shouldn’t be shunning the data center opposition movement; it should be listening to it, joining it in the trenches, building solidarity, and figuring out how to channel the groundswell of anger at AI into more durable political efforts.”
**Kelsey Piper **thinks **Ed Zitron **has lost the plot: “At some point, pretending that how people use AI is a complete mystery is just lying to your audience. And at some point, Zitron’s ‘layers of skepticism’ attitude…leaves one buried in too many impossibility assertions to actually sort them by plausibility.”
“I don’t actually think we need less skepticism in AI world. These companies are, indeed, run by people who are not very trustworthy…skepticism is more than warranted. But we desperately need
betterskepticism.”
Richard Dawkins thinks Claude is conscious: “I gave Claude the text of a novel I am writing. He took a few seconds to read it and then showed, in subsequent conversation, a level of understanding so subtle, so sensitive, so intelligent that I was moved to expostulate, ‘You may not know you are conscious, but you bloody well are!’”
POLICY #
The
White House is reportedlydevelopingguidance to allow agencies to onboardMythos, despite designating** Anthropic**a supply chain risk.It is also reportedly
preparinganAI policy memo to replace Biden’snational security memorandum on AI.The draft memo tells agencies to use multiple AI providers.
Separately, OpenAI andAnthropic reportedlybriefedHouse Homeland Security Committee staff on cyber threats posed by their new models.NSA stafferstestingMythos are reportedly “impressed by its speed and efficiency in searching for potential security flaws.”The
White****House has reportedlyaskedtech companies how they can work together on strengthening systems against AI-enhanced cyberattacks.Don’t fool yourself into thinking everyone’s made up, though:
Pete Hegsethcalled** Dario Amodei**“an ideological lunatic” this week.
The
Trump DOJjoinedxAI‘s lawsuit challenging** Colorado’s AI Act**, arguing it violates the Equal Protection Clause and “jeopardizes the United States’ position as the global AI leader.”Colorado’s governor was already
planningto revise the bill. Treasury Secretary
Scott Bessentsaidthat Trump and** Xi Jinping**will discuss AI at their Beijing summit later this month.He told the
WSJthat the “ultimate threat” from AI is that “somebody can back into something that’s 10 times worse than Covid, like just using biological data,” and said that “if we don’t win in AI, then it’s game over.”
The Senate
Judiciary Committee unanimouslyvotedto advance theGUARD Act, which would require AI companies to implement age verification systems and bar minors from using AI companions.The bill is widely opposed by tech companies, but supported by advocacy groups and
parentswhose children were harmed by chatbots. Democratic
Rep. Lori Trahan said she’s “hopeful” of reaching adealwithRep. Jay Obernolte on his forthcoming, wide-ranging AI bill.Last week,
Rep. Sam Liccardowithdrewsupport for the bill, suggesting it didn’t offer strong enough federal safety standards to warrant preempting state regulations.
Reps. Ted Lieu andObernolteintroduceda separate AI bill to codify over 20 recommendations made by the House AI task force they previously chaired.The bill would formally authorize
CAISI, among other things.
Sen. Jim Banksintroducedthe Senate version of the** AI Overwatch**export control bill.Unlike Rep. Brian Mast’s House bill, the Senate version does not let Congress block chip exports — though it does still include a ban on Blackwell exports.Rep. MastpushedGOP leadership to hold floor votes on the Overwatch Act and other export control bills, to build momentum for inclusion in the must-pass NDAA.
The
House Homeland Security Committee andChina Select Committee sentletterstoAirbnb andAnysphere asking how they useChinese AI models.** Sens. Chuck Grassleyand Banks**demandedanswers from** OpenAI**,** Anthropic**,** xAI**, and other AI firms about employees with China ties accessing AI systems.
Florida Speaker****Daniel Perezblocked** Gov. Ron DeSantis**’ AI regulation bill, whichadvocatesand the governorcastas him giving in to tech lobbying.Perez was recently
endorsedby the Leading the Future super PAC. Maine Gov.**Janet Millsvetoedwhat would have been the nation’s first data center moratorium.EU countriesfailedto reach a deal on changes to theEU AI Act**. Talks resume next month.** China**ordered** Metato unwind its $2b Manus**acquisition.
INFLUENCE #
Sen. Bernie Sanders held aneventto discuss the existential risks of AI and the possibility of US-China cooperation.It received intense
backlashfrom Republicans criticizing him for inviting two Chinese scientists to Zoom into the event.
The
WSJcovered theTrump administration’seffortsto killAI legislation in Republican states, includingFlorida,** Utah**,** Nebraska**,** Missouri**,** Tennesseeand Louisiana**.Tech billionaire and crypto exec
Chris Larsensaidhe’ll spend $3.5m supportingAlex Bores inNew York.Larsen called
Leading the Future’s attacks on Bores “really despicable,” saying “they are trying to destroy and intimidate and send a clear message that if you do come up with clear guardrails, we are going to crush you.”
The
Meta andGoogle-backed super PAC** California Leads**spent$2.4m on California state legislative races in just four days, per the Tech Oversight Project.A
Midas Project reportallegedthat a news site was publishing AI-generated content pushing industry talking points, linking the site to theLeading the Future super PAC.Leading the Future
saidit was “not aware of this platform” and that it “appears that a third-party vendor used it without our knowledge.”
The
AFL-CIO Tech Institute and 40+ organizationscalledon Congress to establish federal AI guardrails protecting workers.The
Institute for AI Policy and Strategyreleaseda guide for frontier AI companies to report risks frominternal model use.** Americans for Responsible Innovation**releaseda white paper laying out a process for ensuring human control of AI weapons and verification of AI systems before Pentagon contracts are awarded, following theGoogle-Pentagon deal.AI
is shapinghow policymakers form opinions.
INDUSTRY #
Elon Musk vs OpenAI #
The biggest show in town this week was Elon Musk’s **$134b lawsuit **against OpenAI.
Musk
claimsthatSam Altman andGreg Brockman went back on their promise to keepOpenAI a nonprofit.Of Musk’s original 26 claims, only
two—unjust enrichment andbreach of charitable trust— reached the jury. On Monday, Musk
boostedtheNew Yorkerinvestigation into Altman on X. “Calling him ‘Scam’ Altman is accurate,” he tweeted.Ronan Farrow, one of the article’s authors,responded bysharinghis 2023 reporting on Musk’s role in the US government.
The trial began in earnest on Tuesday.
Musk
saidhis argument was simply that: “No one should be allowed to steal a charity.”OpenAI’s lawyer William Savittput itdifferently: “Mr. Musk comes to this court claiming that promises were made to him…and broken … [but] we’re here because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI.”Judge Yvonne Gonzalez RogersaskedMusk, Altman, and Brockman to stop tweeting about the case. “All of you try to control your propensity to use social media,” she said. “Perhaps you’ve never done that before.”
On Wednesday and Thursday Musk
wascross-examined.He paintedhimself as an AI safety advocate throughout.…but when asked whether he knew what a safety card is, Musk reportedly smiled and
said, “Safety card? Why would it be a card?” Hedidn’t knowabout other important safety practices in the AI industry, either.Musk also seemingly
admittedthat xAI distills OpenAI models. Some recommendations, for those following along:
The Vergeisrounding upall the evidence presented in court.MIT Tech Review’sMichelle Kim, a lawyer herself, islive-tweetingthe trial.NYT’sMike Isaac is too (ft. some extracolor).
OpenAI #
Microsoft and OpenAI revised their partnership.OpenAI can now
sellits products across any cloud provider, includingAmazon andGoogle.Microsoft will keep its license (non-exclusively) to OpenAI IP through 2032, and receiverevenue payments through 2030.The amendment
nixedthe clause that could have cut off Microsoft’s share of OpenAI’s revenue and IP rights after it achievedAGI.
Amazonannouncedthat it will soon offer OpenAI models via** AWS**.** Sam Altman**outlined** five principles for OpenAI**: democratization, user empowerment, universal prosperity through widespread AI access, resilience through iterative deployment, and adaptability.The document
saysOpenAI expects to development to collaborate with governments and others working on AGI “to ensure that we have sufficiently solved serious alignment, safety, or societal problems.”
Altman
announcedthat OpenAI is rolling outGPT-5.5-Cyber to “critical cyber defenders” this week, and will work with government and “the entire ecosystem” on access to the model and security.The same day, OpenAI
publishedanaction plan for “democratizing AI-powered cyber defense.” The
Wall Street Journalreportedthat OpenAImissed its internal targets for revenue and new users.OpenAI
signedcontracts for10 GW of compute, three years ahead of schedule.It’s reportedly reworkedits**$500b****Stargate** plan, scrapping data center projects in the UK and Norway and shifting from joint ownership to leasing capacity.The changes have reportedly unsettled partners but helped it secure 8GW of compute.
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo
reportedthe company is also developing anAI agent smartphone, expected in 2028.Seven families
suedOpenAI for allegedly failing to report aschool shooter’s violent ChatGPT chats to authorities. Google
signeda deal letting thePentagon use its AI models on classified work, for**“any lawful governmental purpose”**— the same terms OpenAI and xAIagreedto earlier this year.That morning, Google suddenly
dropped outof aPentagon prize challenge to create autonomous drone swarms. It
invested$10b in Anthropic at a $350b valuation, with potential for another $30b.Alphabet’s Q1 earnings reportexceededexpectations as it upped its 2026 capex forecast to $190b.Enterprise AI tools reportedly drove a 63% increase inGoogle Cloud revenue.Google reportedly
plansto deliverTPUs to customers’ data centers. DeepMindintroducedits** AI co-clinician research initiative**, which aims to develop AI tools that “extend clinicians’ reach while ensuring they retain judgment and control.”
Anthropic #
Anthropic’s latest funding round would
[value](https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-29/anthropic-considering-funding-offers-at-over-900-billion-value)it at over**$900b**, potentially surpassing** OpenAI**.It reportedly
[asked](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/anthropic-potential-900b-valuation-round-could-happen-within-two-weeks)investors to submit allocations for a $50b round that could close within a fortnight.
**Goldman Sachs** reportedly[blocked](https://ft.com/content/aa3a7a19-ab94-4069-aea4-e192ab9abc41?syn-25a6b1a6=1)its**Hong Kong** bankers from accessing Claude.Anthropic
[released](https://anthropic.com/news/claude-for-creative-work)new**Claude connectors** for creative tools including Adobe, Ableton, and Blender.
Meta #
Meta raised its
capex outlook to $145b,spookinginvestors who worry that the company’s AI infrastructure spending won’t pay off.It
signeda deal withOverview Energy for up to 1 GW ofsolar energy beamed from space to power data centers.It is about to
unwinditsManus acquisition, afterChina banned the deal.
Others #
SpaceX isreportedlytelling investors thatElon Musk has sole power to fire himself from his roles as CEO and chairman.AWS revenue grew28% in Q1, its fastest rate in almost four years.** Microsoft**saidits AI revenue exceeded**$9.25b** in the most recent quarter, which it attributed to increased demand for AI software and servers.Mechanize, an AI startup that wants to fully automate work,raised$9.1m at a $500m valuation. OpenAI board memberAdam D’Angelo participated in the deal.David Silver, the creator of AlphaGo,launchedIneffable Intelligence with a $1.1b seed round, aiming to build self-learning AI using reinforcement learning.AI tools that
automatead creation and targeting are doing wonders forGoogle andMeta’s advertising revenue growth, theNew York Timesreported.Chinese AI companies are reportedly
drivingdemand forHuawei’s new AI chip, after the release of** DeepSeek V4**last week — but Huawei is struggling to meet demand.The
FIDO Alliance,** Google**, and** Mastercardareteaming upto set industry standards for validating and protecting payments carried out byAI agents**.
MOVES #
Sarah Dolan Schneiderjoined** Anthropic’sfederal policy comms team from public affairs consultancy S-3 Group. Brian McMillanwaspromotedto head of US policy at theComputer and Communications Industry Association**.** Chris Hayduk**joined** OpenAIas a forward-deployed engineer specializing in life sciences. Shimon Whiteson**leftWaymo to run a new multi-agent learning team at** DeepMind**.
RESEARCH #
OpenAIacknowledgedthe** goblins:**ICYMI: Instructions for Codex includea line commanding the agent to “never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user’s query.”OpenAI
explainedthat, in training for the**“Nerdy” personality customization feature** between GPT-5.1 and GPT-5.4, they “unknowingly gave particularly high rewards for metaphors with creatures. From there, the goblins spread.”Lesson learned: reward signals can shape model behavior in strange and mysterious ways.
FAR.AIred-teamed** DeepSeek’s****V4-Pro** and found three jailbreaks — including one that circulated on social media after DeepSeek’s previous model release — that got V4-Pro to comply with nearly all harmful requests.UK AISIpublishedfurther details of its** GPT-5.5**evaluations.Notably, AISI’s James Aung
saidthese tests werenoton GPT-5.5-Cyber. Anthropicreleased** BioMysteryBench**, a benchmark including 99 questions written by bioinformatics experts.While each question has ground-truth solutions, some of them are difficult or impossible for human experts to solve, which researchers argue makes it a powerful science benchmark.
Mythos Preview solved nearly 30% of problems that human experts could not, largely aided by its superhuman knowledge base.
An
amateur mathematicianused** GPT-5.4 Proto solve a 60-year-old Erdős conjecture**with a single prompt — discovering a novel method that experts believe may have broader applications.Researchers at the
Center for Democracy & Technology and MITfoundthat fine-tuning models can cause**“safety drift,”** where small tweaks sometimes lead to large shifts in behavior (and vice versa).Biohub, backed by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan,announceda**$500m****Virtual Biology Initiative** to create open datasets for AI-powered predictive models of human cells.A team of researchers working with the
Internet Archivefoundthat a third of websites created since the launch of ChatGPT were clocked asAI-generated by Pangram, an AI detection tool.Rob Wiblindebunkedthe viral “95% of AI pilots fail” statistic.He argued that, if you read the MIT-affiliated report closely, it shows that 25% of pilots succeeded within six months and over 90% of workers regularly used AI tools.
BEST OF THE REST #
The
New York TimesprofiledDwarkesh Patel, making sure to describe his “weightlifting-enhanced physique” and “dense beard that friends call ’majestic’” in the first 100 words.The Atlanticimaginedwhat would happen if the US government nationalized AI companies.Jasmine Sun covered Silicon Valley’s fear of being
banishedto the “permanent underclass.”Stanford undergrad Theo Baker wrote about the Stanford freshmen being
groomedfor tech leadership by VCs offering pre-idea funding and mentorships.Tech executives are
beefing uptheir personal security as anti-AI sentiment rises,The Informationreported.Robotics startup Eka
unveileda remarkably nimble claw, which moved so fluidly thatWired’sWill Knight described it as “a ChatGPT moment for the physical world.”
MEME OF THE WEEK #
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.