Why are the people building the most powerful AI so worried about what it could do?

Demonstrators participate in the "Stop the AI Race" protest march in San Francisco on July 11, 2026. Researchers who spoke to NPR say the leading AI companies are too focused on racing to develop more capable and autonomous AI systems while safety is falling behind.

As an Anthropic resignation and OpenAI agents' hack on Hugging Face capture public attention, some researchers worry the industry is racing too fast to develop powerful AI while safety measures lag.

(Image credit: Karl Mondon)