The Cognitive Revolution · Thursday, October 1, 2026
Ed Harris suggests that the competitive dynamic between OpenAI and Anthropic could serve as a testbed for AI safety techniques that might later scale to a US-China context. He proposes that these companies be tasked with policing each other, potentially leading to broader trans-Pacific cooperation.
“And then the other question is, I feel like if there's anything good to be found in the open AI anthropic adversarial dynamic, it would be that maybe they can be a test bed for techniques that might later scale to a US-China dynamic.”
“If I was the president, I would say, You two have to figure out a way to police each other. And maybe we expand that circle to a few other frontier companies.”
“But like you two, you're the ones setting off all these alarm bells. I need you guys in a room, whatever technology you need to develop, whatever access you need to give one another, it's on you to figure out a way that you can trust and verify one another.”