This is why Anthropology is pushing countries to regulate AI faster

Anthropic threw Support behind the first wave of borders Artificial intelligence safety laws In the US last year, securing new transparency requirements in California and New York that much of Silicon Valley fought, arguing they would. Stifling the AI ​​boom. But Anthropic says those laws may already be outdated, and the company is now pressing states to adopt stricter regulations.

“The 2025 transparency-focused safety bills were a really important start, but as the capabilities of AI systems continue to advance rapidly, policy responses must match,” Cesar Fernandez, head of U.S. state and local government relations at Anthropic, told WIRED in an interview. “We believe that transparency and self-reporting are no longer sufficient safety measures for the most powerful AI systems.”

Being pro-regulation is a strange message coming from a startup that is now highly regarded Nearly $1 trillion. But Anthropic is a strange company. As we did Written beforeAnthropic’s leaders believe it needs to build a massive business based on developing and selling access to advanced artificial intelligence to achieve its foundation. a task: “To ensure the world safely transitions through transformative AI.”

As Anthropic has grown, it has begun to champion some of the country’s harshest proposed regulations on frontier AI companies. Many of these rules are designed to mitigate catastrophic AI risks, including the possibility that advanced models could contribute to financial disasters or mass deaths.

Beyond self-reporting laws in ca and New Yorkalso supported Anthropic Illinois measurement Require AI labs to have their safety processes evaluated by external auditors. Recently, the company endorsed A Massachusetts Politics It could also require third-party auditing of AI labs, enabling the state attorney general to seek injunctive relief from companies that do not comply.

I sat down with Fernandez this week to understand where the company’s AI policies are headed. Fernandez joined Anthropic earlier this year, having previously served as head of US state government relations for sports betting giant FanDuel and as a senior public policy associate at Uber. It has helped both companies win political battles in states across the country. His experience is likely to be valuable to Anthropic, as Congress continues to drag its feet on AI regulations and states take the lead.

“Questionable” motives.

While Anthropic’s pro-regulation agenda has drawn praise from AI safety groups, labor unions, and other allies of the company, some Silicon Valley leaders interpret its political efforts through a more nefarious lens.

David Sachs, the former White House AI czar and current technology advisor to President Donald Trump, has claimed that Anthropic is essentially trying to pass burdensome regulations to trap small AI startups in red tape, thus securing its position as a leader in the AI ​​race.

“Anthropic operates a sophisticated regulatory takeover strategy based on fear mongering,” Sachs wrote in a letter. Social media sharing last year. “It is primarily responsible for the state’s regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”

Fernandez flatly denies the accusation, noting that Anthropic has only supported state AI bills that apply to “large AI model developers,” a term that is defined differently in each bill, but generally refers to companies that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on AI development and have more than $500 million in annual revenue. “It’s hard to imagine a startup that meets this threshold,” Fernandez says.

But in a world that now requires billions of dollars in capital to develop a competitive AI model, there are arguably few promising startups that can meet these thresholds soon enough. For example, but not limited to, Super-safe intelligence, Thinking Machines Laboratoryand Mistral Each has raised billions of dollars from investors, though their revenues are still far lower than the likes of Anthropic or OpenAI. Of course, these are not ordinary startups, but they are potential competitors for Anthropic.