Inside Anthropic’s state-by-state plan to ratchet up AI rules

Anthropic is pursuing a state-by-state strategy to encourage increasingly tougher AI regulations, contrasting with OpenAI's push for uniform rules across states. The company's head of state government relations said Anthropic seeks legislation that raises safety standards for the most capable AI systems.

SAN FRANCISCO — Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic is pursuing a strategy of one-upmanship that encourages states to impose increasingly tougher AI guardrails, rather than align around a single set of regulations. The approach stands in stark contrast to the one favored by the company’s archrival, OpenAI, which has pushed state lawmakers toward common ground on regulating the breakthrough technology. “While there are some in the industry that think of state policy as a way to create a ceiling for federal legislation, Anthropic is not just looking to support the same bill across the country in every single state,” Cesar Fernandez, the company’s head of U.S. state and local government relations, said in an interview with POLITICO on Tuesday. “We're looking for legislation that meaningfully raises the bar on safety for the most capable AI systems.”