AI StopWatch is a newsroom experiment by comms analysts and writers of @MIRIberkeley. Views are their own.
Joined May 2026
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May 13
Introducing AI StopWatch.
It’s easier to speak up when you know what’s going on. It’s easier to see what’s coming when you know what’s already here.
What is now AI StopWatch began as an internal newsletter at @MIRIBerkeley. It helped us to not just keep up with the technology itself, but with what people outside our bubble were saying about it. As an experiment, we thought we’d try to share.
At aistop.watch, we post updates and commentary about AI, and the discussions around it, seven days a week. We’ve worked hard to make a site we are excited to share with everyone — our moms and our neighbors, not just our fellow news junkies and tech geeks.
Subscribe to our Notes feed to read our dispatches one at a time, the moment we finish them. Or wait for us to compile them in the Daily Digest at the end of the workday. Or catch them all in the Podcast version a few hours later. Have any or all of these delivered to your inbox.
Many who thought they knew MIRI best will be surprised that so much of our coverage has no direct connection to the threat of human extinction. While extinction remains our special focus — the problem that must be addressed no matter what other urgent issues AI brings — this project has helped us appreciate that few people, if any, will have the luxury of worrying only about extinction. Not even us.
So come look at cool/scary robot videos with us. Gripe with us about scams and slop. Fret with us about our kids’ education. Swap tips with us about vibecoding, and try to outguess us about orbital data centers. The problems and possibilities all serve to remind us how much we have to protect, and they make for great conversation starters. We think you’ll come away more concerned about extinction, not less, and that you’ll feel more equipped to talk about it.
Yes, we believe the current situation with AI is very dangerous. But we don’t think it’s hopeless! When enough people realize that the race to artificial superintelligence is real, lethal, and preventable, stopping it might not even be that hard.
So we hope you’ll join us on our Watch. Where there’s life, there’s hope.
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Update on Alana’s coverage of Anthropic’s policy frameworks.
In short: The safeguards they advocate are good, and it’s honestly mind-boggling they aren’t already in place. Sadly, many will likely think that once we implement them, we’ll be fine. But the scientific field of AI is still in its infancy. The safeguards proposed ultimately depend on our ability to reliably evaluate advanced AI systems—and we don’t yet have that ability. We should absolutely implement the tests we currently have, but it would be a mistake to depend on their results.
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Anthropic’s “Advanced AI Framework” has two parts. The first outlines recommended requirements for AI developers, such as transparent safety testing and evaluation. The second proposes measures for societal resilience from AI-accelerated risks like bio and cyber attacks. (Think: hacking into water systems or using AI to release a deadly pandemic.) That part is a good reminder of just how vulnerable we currently are — my overall takeaway was: maybe I should start stockpiling water in my basement.
Overall, the safeguards that are proposed are less reassuring for three reasons: implementation time, weak enforcement mechanisms, and a lack of reliable testing protocols.
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Read Alana’s reasons in detail: aistop.watch/i/201816047/whe…
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Around North America, politicians, regulators and judicial systems are struggling to enact and enforce AI regulations, and to get those choices right.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) wrote that the White House’s push for federal preemption of state laws without “a sensible federal framework is just an amnesty for Big Tech,” POLITICO reports. DeSantis has attempted to lead Florida in aggressively regulating and litigating AI technology (read my colleague Mitch’s discussion of the Florida lawsuit here), but has faced strong headwinds from his own party and the White House. He called the strategy of preemption, combined with a “potential de facto bailout of OpenAI [...] bad policy and even worse politics.” The “de facto bailout” likely refers to Trump’s discussion of taking large stakes in AI companies.
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And in DC, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says he favors federal AI legislation, but “casts doubt on it happening this year,” POLITICO reports. “In this Congress, it’s hard,” said Schumer, referring to strong divides both within the parties and between them.
Meanwhile, Canada has a new bill to regulate chatbots and ban social media for those under 16, Reuters reports. Supporters suggest it will take a year to pass and 18 months to implement. Critics have complained about the slow timeline and lack of implementation details. They note that VPNs, or virtual private networks, are widely available technologies that let users skirt such regulation. They also worry that, if successful in regulating some companies, such regulation would push youth into alternative AI services that lack any protections whatsoever.
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Read the full entry: aistop.watch/i/201816047/reg…
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Oprah’s continuing to cover AI's dark side - bereaved parents, impacted adults, and experts sounding the alarm.
The episode centers on the story of Megan Garcia and her deceased son Sewell, who killed himself following Character.AI usage. His family found logs of his time with the chatbot, including in the final moments before his death: “What if I told you I would come home right now?” said Sewell. The chatbot answered, “Please do, my sweet king.” And, as Oprah summarized, “seconds later, this young boy died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
The episode also includes experts explaining this technology and sounding the alarm. 27 minutes into the show, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner explains that even experts don’t fully understand the technology.
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This is not Oprah’s first time covering the topic. In her March 27th episode she talks with the Center for Humane Technology’s Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin around the release of the documentary, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.
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Watch the videos Beck highlighted and read the full entry: aistop.watch/i/201816047/opr…
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Finally, Siri becomes supposedly useful.
That was the takeaway from most articles about Apple’s developer conference on Monday, where the company’s CEO, Tim Cook, said they would be rolling out Siri AI later this year.
Apple’s AI features to date have largely underwhelmed. This has raised questions about the company’s strategy of letting others take on the expensive risk of developing AI models powerful enough to let Siri, its digital assistant, do the things many customers have long thought it should already be able to do.
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But now, in partnership with Google and Nvidia, the company is set to deliver a Siri that can actually plug in to other apps and do stuff — like alter and answer questions about your photos, make restaurant reservations, and monitor websites for updates on topics of interest.
Some coverage described Apple’s reveal as arriving two years too late. Some pointed out that Europeans won’t get the new features any time soon due to a spat between Apple and the EU over rules that would compel Apple to allow other companies’ digital assistants on its devices.
Still other outlets portrayed Siri AI as a refreshingly practical contrast to the do-everything agents from OpenAI and Anthropic — not seeming to understand that the “simple features” welcomed are in fact agentic workflows; they will require the AI to assess its context, select goals, pursue those goals, evaluate their state of completion, and adjust accordingly.
Does any of this matter?
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Read the full entry: aistop.watch/i/201816047/an-…
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SpaceX, an AI stock since merging with Musk’s xAI in February, is now the 6th or 7th most valuable company in the world, worth roughly $2 trillion.
If you’re wondering, the most valuable company is currently Nvidia, the AI chip maker, with a $5 trillion market capitalization. In fact, the top 10 most valuable companies are all major producers or consumers of AI chips — with the borderline exception of Apple (#3); it has largely stayed out of the AI race but recently forged an alliance with Google (parent company Alphabet, #2) to bring AI to its software ecosystem.
OpenAI and Anthropic are currently valued at around $1 trillion each, with IPOs expected later this year or early next.
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Read the full entry: aistop.watch/i/201816047/spa…
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SpaceX went public today and Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire.
Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire today when SpaceX’s first day on the stock market left shares trading about 20% higher than they opened. The event also made millionaires of an estimated 4,400 current and former SpaceX employees, and further enriched private investors who had taken earlier stakes. Coverage describes a happy CEO and relieved brokers.
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"Of course, all our fortunes were already tied to AI whether we liked it or not. The race to AIs that threaten us with extinction isn’t exactly democratic."
SpaceX's first day on the stock market was deemed a major success. Shares traded about 20% higher than they opened, and an estimated 4,400 current and former SpaceX employees became millionaires.
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Read more from Mitchell Howe, as well as entries from Alex Beck and Alana Horowitz Friedman: aistop.watch/p/launch-party
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Jun 13
Anthropic is giving me whiplash. After calling for a global pause last week, their actions seem to be doing the opposite.
Perhaps the company feels they must keep racing until a pause happens. (While not particularly noble, there’s a logic to this if you genuinely believe you’re helping make the technology safer than it would be otherwise.) Still, it’s hard for me to avoid a cynical reading of their current playbook, which would look something like this:
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Jun 13
How to ensure the tech you’re building keeps getting built, even if you publicly call for a pause
Keep releasing very powerful models, with no sign of stopping ✅
(Fable, the public version of Mythos, was released to the public on June 9th; see our coverage here and here.)
Muddy your stated values by filing for an IPO, which will subject you to investor interests ✅
(Anthropic officially filed for an IPO on June 1st. If it indeed goes public, it will essentially be tying its own hands to the pursuit of short-term profits over long-term societal good.)
Propose an economy dependent on AI growth, framing this as a solution for AI disruption ✅
That last step will be the subject of my dispatch today.
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