Musk proposes rival AI labs, including Chinese firms, safety-test each other's models

Musk described a shared test harness that xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and three or four leading Chinese companies would run on each other's systems, checking for dangers such as help with weapons development or deliberate deception, according to CNBC and a transcript published by RealClearPolitics. He argued that competitors are more likely to find flaws than a lab grading its own work, and that a rival's public warning about an unsafe model would expose its developer to reputational damage and legal liability if harm followed.

He presented the approach as an alternative to a new international regulator, saying regulation, once created, tends only to expand. Beijing would not accept U.S. regulators inspecting Chinese AI companies, he said, but might agree to reciprocal pre-release testing through API access.

The proposal followed Musk's endorsement on X of Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei's Sept. 12 essay calling for slower frontier development, Yahoo Finance reported. CNBC noted that xAI has challenged state-level rules in court, suing California over its AI training data transparency law and Minnesota over a ban on so-called nudify apps.