Before Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for AI companies to collaborate on technical testing and auditing, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google had already begun negotiations to jointly establish an AI industry standards body. Since July, representatives below the CEO level from the three companies have formed a working group and held regular meetings. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman supports the establishment of the body but believes it should be formed by major AI labs independently, without support from the U.S. government. Currently, there is insufficient consensus within the industry, with some companies opposing the idea. There are disagreements among parties regarding the body's model: Amodei advocates for industry self-regulation, calling for open access to technology and the introduction of limited antitrust exemptions. Demis Hassabis agrees with this general direction and has proposed modeling it after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) in the United States, a proposal also endorsed by Elon Musk. However, former White House AI advisor David Sacks opposes a similar model. There are also critical voices within the industry, with Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez expressing concern that the move by leading companies is aimed at forming a cartel, while Sacks questions their motives for slowing down research and development. Currently, the working group meetings among the three companies continue, and Meta's stance remains unclear.
