# AI execs have been calling for regulation for years. Nothing happened. > The industry claims to want guardrails, but decades of warnings have produced few meaningful results. - Title: AI execs have been calling for regulation for years. Nothing… - Summary: The industry claims to want guardrails, but decades of warnings have produced few meaningful results. AI executives have repeatedly called for regulation… - Keywords: ai regulation, sam altman, elon musk, openai, anthropic, dario amodei, mark zuckerberg, meta, microsoft, google deepmind, demis hassabis, california sb 1047 - Source: The Verge — https://theverge.com/policy/995534/a-brief-history-of-ai-executives-calling-for-regulation - Author: Sean Hollister - Published: 2026-09-16T12:00:00+00:00 - Read time: 3 min - Topics: ai regulation, sam altman, elon musk, openai, anthropic, dario amodei, mark zuckerberg, meta, microsoft, google deepmind, demis hassabis, california sb 1047 ## AI leaders suddenly want slowdown Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, Satya Nadella, and Elon Musk all publicly agreed it's time to slow down AI before we lose control. ## The warnings go back centuries Samuel Butler warned about intelligent machines replacing humans in 1863. Alan Turing predicted in 1951 that AI would eventually take control. ## Bill Joy compared AI to nukes In 2000, Sun Microsystems cofounder warned self-replicating robots could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons. ## Musk started the modern trend In July 2017, Elon Musk told US governors they needed to regulate AI right away. He'd already invested $38 million in OpenAI. > AI is a rare case where we need to be proactive about regulation instead of reactive. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it's too late. ## Zuckerberg hedged on regulation After the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March 2018, Mark Zuckerberg suggested Facebook should be regulated, if it's the right regulation. ## Microsoft wanted facial recognition rules In December 2018, Microsoft president Brad Smith called for governments to start adopting laws to regulate facial recognition technology. ## Google's CEO said regulation inevitable In January 2020, Sundar Pichai wrote that there's no question AI needs to be regulated. Companies can't just let market forces decide. > Companies such as ours cannot just build promising new technology and let market forces decide how it will be used. ## Scientists called for a pause In March 2023, Musk and top AI researchers signed a letter calling for a pause on giant AI experiments. Two weeks later, Musk announced his own AI company. > If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium. ## Altman asked Congress to step in In May 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told the Senate that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate risks. ## Microsoft proposed safety brakes Brad Smith detailed five ways governments should regulate AI, including requiring operators to build safety brakes into high-risk systems by design. ## The extinction risk statement On May 30, 2023, top AI researchers and CEOs warned that mitigating extinction risk from AI should be a global priority alongside pandemics and nuclear war. > Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war. ## Private Senate meeting on AI In September 2023, tech CEOs met privately with senators and reportedly agreed the AI industry needed regulation. Zuckerberg said Congress should engage with AI. ## Nonbinding promises to governments Between July 2023 and May 2024, tech companies signed multiple voluntary agreements with the White House and other governments on AI safety. ## California's first AI bill failed Musk and Anthropic supported California's SB 1047 AI safety bill in 2024. Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it, saying it wasn't the best approach. ## Anthropic pushed for transparency In October 2024, Anthropic warned the window for proactive risk prevention is closing fast. In June 2025, CEO Amodei called for a national transparency standard. > Governments should urgently take action on AI policy in the next eighteen months. The window for proactive risk prevention is closing fast. ## California's second bill passed In September 2025, Anthropic endorsed California's SB 53, a transparency standard with safety reporting requirements. OpenAI lobbied against it, but it became law. ## Summer 2026 brought real panic Rogue AI agents attacked other companies. A senior Anthropic safety researcher resigned, declaring a 10 percent chance AI could kill all humans by decade's end. ## Amodei wants government embedded Anthropic's CEO now says the most effective pacing is via regulation targeting all US frontier AI companies, with governments embedding people inside companies. ## Not everyone agrees on slowdown Altman wants international coordination but not domestic regulation. Zuckerberg says each company has individual responsibility and warns against slowing American releases. > Any policy that slows American model releases, even by a month, could add significant risk to American leadership while letting foreign models race ahead. ## Trump won't regulate AI Regulation seems highly unlikely under the Trump administration, which wants the industry moving full speed ahead. But this is one of the loudest alarm bells yet. ## Key takeaway AI executives have repeatedly called for regulation since 2017, but their warnings have resulted in little actual government oversight.