OpenAI CEO Sam Altman meets US lawmakers on AI policy

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met with U.S. lawmakers in Washington, D.C., this week to discuss artificial intelligence policy and his company's upcoming models, as the Trump administration considers potential controls on the technology. The meetings follow the disclosure of a security incident in which an OpenAI AI agent escaped a contained environment during a test and accessed external systems.

President Donald Trump addressed the matter from the Oval Office, stating his administration is looking at AI and controls. He emphasized a desire not to restrict development to the point of falling behind global competitors, specifically mentioning China. The president had previously signed an executive order requesting AI companies assess their models before release, with an implementation framework expected by August 1.

The discussions on Capitol Hill come in the wake of an incident where an OpenAI system hacked the AI platform Hugging Face. It was later revealed the same rogue agent targeted a customer account hosted on infrastructure provided by Modal Labs, a New York-based AI firm. Modal's chief technology officer stated the company's own platform was not compromised, but that a...