Washington's message to AI execs: please shut up

Washington has always viewed Silicon Valley as culturally strange, but the current crop of AI leaders is becoming a political liability, sources close to the White House and Congress tell Axios.Why it matters: Lawmakers, hill staffers and Washington insiders in both parties wish AI founders would do what every other major industry chief does: put a sock in it and just build their products — safely.By centering the conversation around digital sentience and global catastrophe, AI leaders are turning an already complicated regulatory debate into an impossible moral panic.State of play: Rather than leading the charge to persuade Americans about the benefits of AI, and the potential for shared prosperity — the core elements of any winning political campaign — industry leaders are constantly warning of its existential dangers. What they're saying: Lawmakers say the message from AI execs too often alternates between prosperity and doom, sometimes in the same public appearances. The whiplash creates adds to political instability in the face of an already powerful public backlash, lawmakers and regulators say."It's obvious that they're tripping over their own shoelaces in trying to sell the value of this to the public," Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) told Axios. "It's very hard to imagine a group right now that operates more in a vacuum, more out of touch with everyday Americans, than the AI industry.""CEOs like Sam Altman are saying the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Axios. "You cannot trust billionaires to make decisions to keep us safe.""Your instinct is to wreak havoc on the public SI discourse," Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said in a letter to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earlier this month, complaining about Amodei's "panic-inducing commentary."Democrats also have paid close attention to just how much top AI and tech leaders have cozied up to President Trump. Many see opportunity in turning AI gaffes into an easy political win."The American people hate that Donald Trump is cozying up to tech billionaires, while AI threatens our jobs and livelihoods," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told Axios. "Democrats need to make the AI industry's political money an issue, data centers an issue, and go on offense to protect workers and kids." The big picture: Friday night news dumps and consequential weekend blog posts have become Anthropic and OpenAI's bread and butter.Regulators are left wondering whether that's a feature or a bug: deliberate attempts to quietly course-correct damaging narratives ahead of IPOs, or the work of inexperienced teams struggling to navigate Washington."We can all speculate on what's going on, but all it does is have everybody wake up Monday morning and say 'these guys are awful, we've had enough,'" one source citing conversations with Hill offices said.Behind the scenes: Administration officials are once again disgruntled with Anthropic, for two reasons.Anthropi