Google wants AI regulation, but on its own terms

For more than three years now, we've been hearing from AI execs who insist that the government regulate their industries … until there's a chance such oversight could hurt business. OpenAI and Anthropic have led the way with the latter's CEO, Dario Amodei, calling for "binding regulations" in June 2026, only to push back when …

[DS999]

"We want regulation"

But regulation that binds our competition while letting us do whatever we'd like, and most importantly makes it harder for the public to stand in the way of us building datacenters wherever we want.

[ecofeco]

Re: "We want regulation"

Said every corporation in history.

[nobody who matters]

It won't really matter if Google is regulated on its own terms or not - they have shown often enough in the past that they will continue to do as they please regardless, and only act all apologetic and pretend to make an appearance of rectifying their rule-breaking when they are caught out.

[FF22]

In other words

Google wants a regulation that only hinders its competitors from catching up to it, after it has already taken the lead by refusing not only regulation, but practically ignoring all of copyright law

[fg_swe]

Reallies ?

I do have not used Google Search for a long time now. Qwant is doing fine. AI I do with Mistral/le chat and ChatGPT. No need for Google. Mistral apparently also does not have the Baby Controls ChatGPT has.

This looks more like a Marketing Operation. All news good news etc etc.

"we must regulate this super dangerous thing, or it will eat humanity. Now buy our stock and profit from thing".

[elsergiovolador]

Classic

Big rich corporations enjoy lack of regulation to create their product.

Then they beg for regulation so that their potential competitors don't get the same edge.

Lock in the oligopoly.

Probably just a few wine and steak dinners, few non-exec directorships and a threat to pull out the plug if government doesn't comply.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Classic

Yay

Wine and steak!

- Michael Ellis, Uxbridge

[Sproggit]

Re: Classic

I don't think the established players are looking to regulation to lock out competition, since of course they would also be bound by it.

Cartel markets seem to be using patents and other forms of intellectual property law for that.

In this case I think what they are aiming for is a sort of "Keyser Soze" form of Regulatory Capture - basically trying to influence the federal government on what elements of AI need to be regulated and what form that regulation should take.

We can expect their proposals to have the appearance of something useful whilst allowing them to continue doing pretty much whatever the #### they want. It will be all show - all bark and no bite - and it will be narrowly tailored in the same way that US financial regulation is narrowly tailored, which will make it possible [perhaps even easy] for the industry to work around the laws.

[Bebu sa Ware]

"A Pragmatic Approach to AI Governance in America"

I thought the current "Pragmatic Approach to Governance in America" was to determine how much to bung to the clown in the Oval Office.

[fg_swe]

Re: "A Pragmatic Approach to AI Governance in America"

There is always Cuba for you, if you want clear rules, poverty and harsh punishment.

The clear rule is: never mess with the ruling oligarchy, or else.

[Snowy]

AI wild west

The AI companies see themselve as the Cowboys and everyone else is the Indians. The Cowboys are looking for projection while also wanting the green light to do whatever they want to do!

[Mickey Porkpies]

would hurt business

business being how much money we can screw out of people, business etc for providing very little added value.

[retiredFool]

German court

I found it interesting a German Court found google liable for its AI response. I can see google's problem, On the one hand they want to slurp up everything and call it fair use, because they are not copying. On the other hand if they aren't copying and it is indeed a truly new thought, then that makes them liable. My hope is one or the other (copyright infringement, or liability) bite them in the ass hard.

[Dinanziame]

Re: German court

I think more than anything, they are terrified of becoming irrelevant by having having their search completely supplanted by chatgpt the way they supplanted altavista. From their point of view, they are fighting for survival.

[fg_swe]

Re: German court

BINGO.

[fg_swe]

Well

Google does whatever they please in spite of DSGVO, while everybody else is held to highest(read:insane) standards.

They also do not pay tax here.

That's Germany.

[Anonymous Coward]

I’d rather go off grid

Than live in a world of AI bullshit.

[fg_swe]

Re: I’d rather go off grid

It's a nice mousetrap and can be funny at times. Just have some other life, such as walking the dog, meeting friends, enjoying the paradise of your forest etc IN ADDITION to WWW, AI and other computery.

[cookiecutter]

shysters the lot of them!!

doom trolling it was called on a NY Times post.

When a silicon valley tech exec is talking, there's a 110% chance they're lying.

They want "regulation" to get they can control & say their regulated but doesn't actually do anything. In California these self same "Ai is so dangerous it needs to be regulated" grifters are spending $millions lobbying to stop the phrase "if you market chatbots to children, YOU have to prove they don't cause harm".

They want fake federal regulation so they can then turn around and say "we're regulated federally so you local ppl don't need to regulate us"; as they know states like California will spank them hard!!

As ever it's all performative bullshit

[fg_swe]

Parents ?

Parents must be held accountable for controlling what children do with electronics. Screen time must be controlled and limited.

Playground time, football time, playing-with-other-children-time-in-real-world is imperative.

We Grownups must regulate this, the children cannot do so. Delegating this responsibility to FAANG won't work and it is cowardly.

[LBates]

How about model the FARO after the NRC? So, don't regulate use, monitor the frontier models capability of causing catastrophic risk. Oh, wait, that's right....the AI companies want this all done on THEIR terms. Plus, that would mean giving insight into the models themselves, which Anthropic, Google don't fully understand in the first place.

[fg_swe]

Demonic Books

While we are at it, will we also outlaw books with clearly immoral and demonic content ?

I have seen this crap in the hands of my children.

Of course the answer will be that we cannot do that for freedom of speech reasons and everybody/every-family must self-regulate, more or less.