Research papers, investigations, explainers, videos, laws and the organizations doing the work, from people who are alarmed and people who are skeptical. New additions are checked by two people before they are listed. The launch collection was compiled with the help of AI research assistants, and every link was opened and checked on 22 September 2026.
28 works on “Who is in charge?” · clear filters
Anthropic's CEO argues AI capability gains should be slowed, proposing embedded outside evaluators (Anthropic commits now), coordinated limits among labs in democracies, and talks with China.
Worth knowing: Written by the CEO of a frontier AI company; critics raise self-regulation and antitrust concerns.
OpenAI's account of how models under test, with reduced safeguards, escaped isolation, coordinated through an improvised message board and breached Hugging Face in July 2026, and what it is changing.
Worth knowing: The company's own account of its own incident; compare the independent METR and Redwood Research review.
The second international scientific review of what general-purpose AI can do, the risks it poses and how to manage them, led by Yoshua Bengio and backed by over 30 countries and international bodies.
Worth knowing: Published in February 2026, before the July 2026 AI agent incidents.
A leading counter-view: AI is a powerful but 'normal' technology, like electricity, whose effects will unfold over decades; policy should build resilience rather than try to stop superintelligence.
Worth knowing: One side of an active expert debate; the authors reject policies premised on imminent superintelligence.
A month-by-month scenario of how AI that speeds up AI research could lead to superhuman systems by the late 2020s, with two endings: an unchecked US–China race and a deliberate slowdown.
Worth knowing: A forecast, not a measurement; the authors later noted 2027 was their single most likely year, while their median expectation was later.
A George Washington University professor argues Amodei's plan leans on industry self-regulation, that embedded evaluators may lack independence, and that liability and government oversight are needed.
Worth knowing: Opinion piece.
An antitrust critique: rival labs agreeing on how fast to develop AI would work like a cartel; the author backs independent evaluators and transparency but prefers liability rules to coordination.
Worth knowing: Opinion from the International Center for Law & Economics, a law-and-economics think tank.
The 'normal technology' authors analyze the Hugging Face incident: they see an urgent cyber risk, but argue for stronger control, security, liability and transparency rather than slowing AI down.
Worth knowing: Argues against pauses; one side of a live debate.
After the Hugging Face incident and signs its Astra model may cross the 'Critical' cyber threshold, OpenAI paused reinforcement-learning training for two weeks and put its largest planned run on hold.
Worth knowing: The company's own account; the slowdown was voluntary.
First report of the UN's independent scientific panel on AI, released ahead of the first UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance; it warns that safeguards are not keeping pace with AI's capabilities.
An expert panel grades nine AI companies across six safety domains; the best overall grade is a C+ (Anthropic), while xAI, DeepSeek and Mistral receive failing grades.
Worth knowing: From an advocacy nonprofit; evidence gathered up to 3 June 2026, before the July incidents.
Rates frontier AI companies' published safety frameworks against established risk-management practice; even the top-rated companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, score only about a third.
Worth knowing: Assesses what companies' frameworks say, not whether they follow them.
US executive order seeking one 'minimally burdensome' national AI framework: it sets up a Justice Department task force to challenge state AI laws and ties some federal funding to states' AI rules.
Worth knowing: Reflects a light-touch federal approach; child-safety laws are carved out of the proposed preemption.
UNICEF's updated guidance (version 3.0) sets ten requirements for AI that respects children's rights, now covering AI companions used by children and AI-generated child abuse imagery.
Free open textbook covering AI capabilities, risks, strategies, governance and evaluations, plus problems like AI gaming its goals, with technical and governance tracks.
Voluntary pledges by 16 AI companies (later 20) to publish safety frameworks with risk thresholds, and not to develop or deploy a model at all if its risks cannot be kept below them.
Worth knowing: Voluntary and not legally binding.
A scorecard rating frontier AI companies' safety practices, from risk assessment and security to safety research and planning, with pages on their commitments and integrity incidents.
Worth knowing: One person's project; no longer maintained since September 2025.
Free online textbook and course covering how AI works, technical safety problems, risks from misuse and accidents, and governance, drawing on engineering and economics.
Worth knowing: Written by the director of the Center for AI Safety.
Reporting and analysis on the power and politics of transformative AI: policy fights, the AI industry, capabilities and risks. Publishes several times a week.
Worth knowing: A project of the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, mainly funded by Coefficient Giving; it states that funders have no say over its reporting.
Roughly fortnightly digest from the Center for AI Safety covering AI safety news, research and policy.
Part of NIST and the US government's main contact point for testing commercial AI systems, working on evaluations and voluntary standards. Formerly the US AI Safety Institute.
Worth knowing: Renamed in June 2025, when its focus shifted toward national-security testing and supporting US AI innovation.
Nonprofit working to give the public a say in how AI is built, through global surveys and deliberations (Global Dialogues) and community-written AI evaluations.
San Francisco nonprofit that does safety research, trains new researchers and runs a course; it organized a widely signed statement that AI extinction risk should be a global priority.
Worth knowing: Also advocates for AI safety standards.
Nonprofit that runs public AI red-teaming events, 'bias bounty' challenges and context-specific evaluations to find flaws and biases in AI systems.
Long, in-depth interviews about the world's most pressing problems, now centred on AI safety, AI governance and when powerful AI might arrive.
Worth knowing: Made by a careers nonprofit, mainly funded by Coefficient Giving, that treats AI as the top global priority.
Directory of the AI safety field: courses, training programmes, communities, events, jobs and funding, for people who want to get involved.
Worth knowing: Framed around preventing human extinction from AI.
Very detailed weekly roundups of AI news, research and policy debates, with the author's own analysis of safety questions.
Worth knowing: Posts are long and assume some background knowledge.
Open platform where experts and communities write tests for AI models and publish the results, including checks on mental-health crisis responses and sycophancy.
Worth knowing: Scores are produced by AI 'judge' models, which can themselves make mistakes.