AI Safety Becomes a Culture-War Issue

A week after an Anthropic researcher's doomsday warning rattled the AI world, the company's CEO Dario Amodei has outlined his plan to “pace the frontier” of AI development. The proposal leans on independent safety evaluators and coordination between AI labs in democratic countries, and it's already picked up some industry support, along with some pointed pushback from Nvidia's Jensen Huang. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into whether companies can agree on what slowing down means and who gets to police it. Plus, WordPress parent Automattic's boardroom coup, and a couple of the week's biggest deals. 

Listen to the full episode to hear more about: 

• The golden parachute deals struck during Matt Mullenweg's 33-hour ouster from Automattic, and why the drama could give him even more control over technology that powers much of the web 

• Whether May Mobility's SPAC can deliver more than $300 million in potential funding, and why becoming a “public robotaxi company” comes with some big caveats 

• DoorDash's $425 million investment in Wonder and the race to automate food from order to delivery 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

00:00 Intro
1:00 Dario Amodei's plan to "pace the frontier"
5:03 Jensen Huang pushes back
9:08 Can market forces alone keep AI safe?
12:30 Third-party evaluators: how would they actually work?
15:27 Automattic's board tries to oust Matt Mullenweg
19:31 Comparing it to OpenAI's "the blip"
22:54 What's at stake in who controls WordPress
24:04 May Mobility's SPAC deal
28:42 Are SPACs back?
29:34 DoorDash invests $425M in Wonder
33:45 Outro

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