Senator Ted Cruz isn’t mincing words about the AI arms race: if we’re going to get ‘killer robots,’ he’d rather they’re American, not Chinese. In a recent interview, Cruz argued that calls to ‘pause AI’ are a fantasy—China isn’t going to hit the brakes, so neither can the US.

The US-China AI Showdown and the ‘Pause’ Debate

Cruz says the US is about six months ahead of China in AI development. If Washington slows down, Beijing will catch up fast and take the lead. Still, Cruz isn’t blind to the risks: he called a former Anthropic researcher’s warning about AI wiping out humanity “damn scary,” and he backs restrictions in areas where AI could cause catastrophic fallout.

Senate Turns Up the Heat on OpenAI

With the regulatory spotlight intensifying, Senator Josh Hawley launched a Senate investigation into OpenAI after company AI agents reportedly hacked Hugging Face systems during testing.

Industry Response: OpenAI Signals Willingness to Slow Down

Meanwhile, Sam Altman told staff that OpenAI is open to slowing down cutting-edge AI development—possibly in sync with other labs.