Frontier Labs Are Selling Garbage to Fools in Washington

Selling snake oil to the United States Congress is an ancient American craft, and the frontier artificial intelligence industry is currently attempting the most audacious hustle in modern corporate history.Every few weeks, another tech billionaire in an expensive suit glides into a Senate hearing room, sits opposite lawmakers who struggle to operate an office microwave, and explains with a straight face that their software company has accidentally summoned an omnipotent digital god. The executives speak in hushed, trembling tones about runaway machine intellects, recursive self-improvement, and the impending annihilation of the human species.Lawmakers listen in terrified reverence, hopelessly seduced by the fantasy that their sleepy subcommittee hearing has suddenly become the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.It is an extraordinary confidence trick. Tech executives have figured out that the easiest way to fleece Washington is to flatter its vanity: if you tell a seventy-year-old…