# AI Regulation Needs More Than Amodei’s Warning – Here’s the Real Agenda.

Opinion

— September 16, 2026

By Michael Posner

As seen in: Forbes

![Michael Posner headshot](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/2026-09/micheal_posner_-_headshot_1_2_1_0.jpeg?itok=fsQoq3Nq)

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei touched off a firestorm Saturday with an open letter warning of the existential dangers of new AI models and urging a slowdown in their development. To their credit, Amodei and Anthropic have been relatively more transparent than their peers in identifying the risks associated with AI and in calling for greater oversight. What he has proposed is an important first step, and it was quickly endorsed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceX chief Elon Musk, and Demis Hassabis of Google’s DeepMind. But three vital issues warrant greater attention: the need for a robust federal regulatory structure to create clear rules, then hold these companies accountable; the importance of addressing the full range of digital issues beyond frontier AI; and the challenges in realistically navigating U.S.-China competition.

Amodei and others make vague references to federal regulation but focus on self-regulation, recognizing frontier AI as the only aspect warranting scrutiny, not the broader industry or its public-facing products. He called for each company to embed third-party evaluators who can check “whether an AI company is actually following the training, deployment, operational, and safeguards practices they claim to be following.” This is a good initiative but clearly insufficient. Would we accept a system where airlines employ evaluators they choose and hire as our sole assurance of air safety? Ditto drug companies, meatpacking plants, or chemical factories.

Congress has created and funded federal agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to oversee industries whose products or means of production pose risks to our well-being. Despite the threat AI could pose to the survival of society as we know it, it is the only major industry in our country without comparable industry oversight.

Read the full [*Forbes* article](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2026/09/16/ai-regulation-needs-more-than-amodeis-warningheres-the-real-agenda/).
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*Michael Posner is the Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance, Professor of Business and Society and Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.*

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