OpenAI backs U.S. bills aimed at AI-driven biological weapons risk

OpenAI is endorsing a package of bipartisan bills before the U.S. Congress that the company says will help stop AI models from accelerating biological weapons and synthetic-virus threats, a company spokesperson told Reuters. The ChatGPT-maker is backing the Web of Biological Data Act, the AI-Ready Bio-Data Standards Act, and the Scale Biology Act, and also supports a FRONTIER Act provision requiring leading AI companies to embed independent evaluators to assess model safety.

POLITICS desk — same-day independent confirmation that a frontier lab is publicly lining up behind Congress’s AIxBio data bills and independent safety evaluation rules.

Named bills, as Reuters has the spokesperson: the Web of Biological Data Act, the AI-Ready Bio-Data Standards Act, and the Scale Biology Act.

OpenAI is also backing a key provision of the FRONTIER Act that would require leading AI companies to embed independent evaluators to assess the safety of their models, the spokesperson said, via Reuters. Independent evaluators means outside testers checking whether a lab’s powerful model is safe enough — not the company grading its own homework.

Politico earlier reported the endorsements; Reuters confirmed them with OpenAI, Reuters said.

Last week, OpenAI said it was pushing for mandatory national AI safety requirements in the United States, Reuters noted.

Reuters also notes that concerns about advanced AI have escalated, with heads of top U.S. AI labs including OpenAI calling for a slowdown in the pace of advanced AI development. This filing is Tuesday’s bill-endorsement wire only.

Plain English for the rest of the card: these are proposed laws, not passed law. AIxBio = the overlap of AI and biology. Biological weapons = disease or toxins made to harm people. Synthetic viruses = viruses built or heavily edited in a lab. Independent evaluators = outside testers. FRONTIER Act here = the bill Reuters names for that evaluator rule, not a finished statute.