Compare proposals for regulating applications, frontier developers, and international research, with the sources behind each position.
Regulate harmful applications, not general-purpose models. He opposed California's SB 1047, supports rules against specific harms such as non-consensual deepfakes, and argues that licensing or liability at the model level entrenches incumbents and suppresses open source.
“By raising compliance costs for open source efforts, this will discourage the release of open models”
He wants rules aimed at a few catastrophic risks, opposed a federal moratorium on state laws, and since June 2026 has argued that voluntary commitments and transparency are no longer enough.
“It is time to go beyond transparency to more serious and binding regulation of AI.”
How the view has changed. In August 2024 he told Governor Newsom the amended SB 1047's "benefits likely outweigh its costs." In a June 2025 New York Times op-ed he called a proposed ten-year moratorium on state AI laws "far too blunt an instrument" and asked instead for a federal transparency standard. The June 2026 essay, citing Mythos Preview's cyber capabilities, proposed FAA-style mandatory testing with government power to block a release.
He says a handful of companies, his own included, should not be setting the rules for the technology, and argues that is the case for regulation.
“I think I'm deeply uncomfortable with these decisions being made by a few companies, by a few people”
Wants oversight to start with an IPCC-like scientific body and build toward something like the IAEA, and in 2026 proposed an industry-funded standards body to review models before release.
“The strength of this approach is it would be technically focused, while at the same time supporting innovation”
How the view has changed. The 2023 proposal was for international bodies; the 2026 framework is US-focused and self-regulatory, which critics of voluntary principles have called inadequate.
Regulation should target the people and companies that build and deploy automated systems, requiring them to disclose training data and model architectures, label synthetic media, and answer for their products' outputs, rather than chase hypothetical future systems.
“What we need is regulation that enforces transparency.”
How the view has changed. She has since taken the argument to congressional hearings, the FTC and the European Parliament; by 2025 she and Hanna were also calling for data-protection rules on the model of the EU's GDPR and pointing to union contracts that limit workplace automation.
Opposed California's SB 1047 on the grounds that holding original developers liable for downstream misuse would chill open-source development and academic research; prefers rules aimed at applications and evidence of harm.
“Open-source development is important in the private sector, but vital to academia, which cannot advance without collaboration and access to model data.”
How the view has changed. After the veto she accepted Governor Newsom's invitation to co-lead the Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models, whose June 2025 report called for transparency and safety guardrails that Senator Wiener, the bill's author, welcomed.
Argues that policy should rest on evidence about how AI is used rather than on speculative narratives, and that sensational framing produces bad rules.
“For starters, it's essential that we govern on the basis of science, not science fiction.”
Wants pre-release safety review of high-impact models by independent scientists, post-release audits with power to recall systems, liability for harms and a dedicated agency, nationally and internationally.
“Allowing independent scientists access to these systems before they are widely released – as part of a clinical trial-like safety evaluation - is a vital first step.”
How the view has changed. In September 2026 he opposed the Sanders-Casar bill's permanent ban on superintelligence research as "too broad" while writing that "we may need a temporary pause, maybe even one that lasts for a number of years".
Argues that market incentives will not produce safe AI and that only government regulation can force companies to spend more on safety; supported California's SB 1047 and has pressed the US Congress to act.
“My worry is that the invisible hand is not going to keep us safe.”
How the view has changed. In August 2024 he co-signed a letter calling SB 1047 "the bare minimum for effective regulation of this technology." In September 2026, after briefing lawmakers at the Capitol, he said Congress had "maybe a year, but not much more than a year."
He expects that as AI becomes visibly more powerful, rival companies will collaborate on safety and governments and the public will demand action, and that showing people what AI can do is the most effective way to produce that response.
“as AI continues to become more powerful, more visibly powerful, there will also be a desire from governments and the public to do something.”
How the view has changed. This is a change from SSI's founding plan of building superintelligence without releasing anything first; he said the shift "may back-propagate into the plans of our company."
He opposes new AI-specific rules, arguing that existing product liability, cybersecurity and unauthorized-access laws should be applied first, and he sides with the Trump administration against a government-backed slowdown.
“You have all kinds of liabilities associated with cybersecurity”
How the view has changed. In 2025 he praised the scrapping of the Biden AI diffusion rule as "a great reversal of a wrong policy."
Huang argues that U.S. restrictions on AI chip sales to China have failed, cost American companies a large market and accelerated Chinese chipmakers, and that the United States wins by getting the world to build on American technology.
“I think, all in all, the export control was a failure.”
How the view has changed. In November 2025 he told the Financial Times that "China is going to win the AI race," then issued a statement hours later that China is "nanoseconds behind America"; in September 2026 he told CBS that "Every single chip company should go and serve the world, compete for the world."
Supports binding rules developed through standards bodies and international scientific assessment, and says competition with China is no reason to avoid them.
“Regulation is not a nasty, dangerous word”
How the view has changed. In October 2023 he and Eric Schmidt warned that calls to "just regulate" were "as simplistic, as calls to simply press on" and proposed an expert panel first; in 2023 Inflection signed the White House's voluntary commitments. By September 2026 he was calling for coordinated disclosure of model capabilities to third parties.
He has moved from proposing a federal licensing agency for large-scale models to arguing for "sensible regulation that does not slow us down" and against any government pre-approval of model releases, whether federal or state.
“Number one, I would form a new agency that licenses any effort above a certain scale of capabilities and can take that license away and ensure compliance with safety standards.”
How the view has changed. At the May 2025 Senate Commerce hearing, asked about a "prior approval government regulatory process," he answered, "I think that would be disastrous."
Supports policy that keeps research and model release open, and opposes rules such as California's SB 1047 that would hold developers liable for downstream harms from large models, which he says rest on inflated estimates of near-term capability.
“At Meta, we believe it is better if AI is developed openly, rather than behind closed doors by a handful of companies.”
How the view has changed. In September 2024 he wrote that SB 1047's supporters had a "distorted view" of AI's near-term capabilities, one day after Hinton endorsed the bill; Governor Newsom vetoed it later that month.
Wants binding rules that scale scrutiny with risk, registration of frontier models, large public investment in safety research, and independent evaluation before deployment; supported California's SB 1047 and argued companies cannot be trusted to assess themselves.
“We cannot let corporations grade their own homework and simply put out nice-sounding assurances.”
Sees AI as an international problem on the scale of nuclear weapons, needing treaties, democratic oversight and time for institutions to catch up; co-chairs the UN's scientific panel on AI.
“Society needs time to put in place what needs to be put in place.”
