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Down With the AI Overlords—With Sarah Myers West

AI Now's Sarah Myers West joins the Fighting Fascism podcast to discuss how AI is concentrating power among a handful of oligarchs—and how its future could be made more democratic.

Europe’s AI translation industry told it risks reputation by partnering with US firms

Leevi Saari, AI Now's EU Policy Fellow, discusses the pull of the AI industry in the U.S., and how it impacts companies and economies in Europe.

Musk v Altman and the ‘manifest destiny’ of AI

Billionaire tech CEOs like to claim that they're the only ones we can trust to be in charge of AI and its impacts on the world. “It reminds me of manifest-destiny language,” said Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of AI Now,

AI is disrupting nursing as Uber-like apps grow and set earnings and work schedules

The gig-work apps for nursing share parallels with Uber and other established gig-work apps, said AI Now's Katie Wells. For both groups of apps, algorithms play a prominent role in how users work, from determining pay to handling potential account deactivations.

Why AI companies want you to be afraid of them

When Anthropic touted the capabilities of its new model, Mythos, some criticized their fear-based marketing while others doubted the claims. AI Now's Heidy Khlaaf says we need more transparency in order to substantiate what Anthropic's says: "I think there are a lot of cracks in this narrative that Mythos is all powerful, we can't release it."

The tech industry is applying an Uber-style ‘gigification’ model to nursing. It means no workers’ comp, AI managers, and ‘surveillance wages’

In a similar vein to ridesharing apps, the "gigification" of health care might come at the expense of worker security and even allow companies to sidestep regulations, according to AI Now's new report on the state of nursing gig work. 

Nurses Sound Alarm as ‘Uber for Nursing’ Apps Push to Deregulate Healthcare

A new AI Now Institute report published April 21, 2026, warns that gig-work platforms marketed as "Uber for nursing" are aggressively lobbying states to rewrite healthcare staffing rules, a push that could leave nurses with less pay, fewer protections, and less control over their shifts, according to The Guardian.

‘Uber for nurses’: gig-work apps lobby to deregulate healthcare, report finds

Billion-dollar tech platforms are aggressively pushing for deregulation of the “Uber for nursing” industry in an effort to expand gig work in the healthcare sector, according to a report published on Tuesday.

‘Safety first’ puts Anthropic ahead in game of AI spin

But Dr Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute and a former OpenAI safety engineer, is sceptical. She notes Anthropic provides no comparison with existing automated security tools, nor any false-positive rates. “It also serves their ‘safety first’ image, as they’re able to justify the lack of public release, even a limited one for independent evaluation, as a public service – when it simply obscures experts’ abilities to independently validate their

The Great AI Grift

Tech leaders want you to believe that AI is the key to a new golden age. The reality looks more like a bold, government-backed heist.

AI Giants Go on Charm Offensive to Avert Public Backlash

But broad skepticism and fear about the impact of AI have made opposing all regulation untenable for tech company CEOs, said Kak, who is co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, which has advocated for AI regulation. If they can’t oppose every policy, “What’s the next best move?” she asked. “It’s to place yourself in the driver’s seat, and that is what every single one of them is doing.”

U.S. military is using AI to help plan Iran air attacks, sources say, as lawmakers call for oversight

“It’s very dangerous that ‘speed’ is somehow being sold to us as strategic here, when it’s really a cover for indiscriminate targeting when you consider how inaccurate these models are,” Khlaaf said.

The one question everyone should be asking after OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon

“In terms of safety guardrails for ‘high-stake decisions’ or surveillance, the existing guardrails for generative AI are deeply lacking, and it has been shown how easily compromised they are, intentionally or inadvertently,” Heidy Khlaaf, the chief AI scientist at the nonprofit AI Now Institute, told me. “It’s highly doubtful that if they cannot guard their systems against benign cases, they’d be able to do so for complex military and surveillance operations.”

Iran and AI on the battlefield

Today we're talking about AI military capabilities, how companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have become, or are on their way to becoming deeply enmeshed in the military. And what happens when these companies and governments start building systems that help decide who lives and who dies in a war. I'm joined today by Heidy Khlaaf. She is the chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute and an expert on AI safety within defence and national security, including in autonomous weapons systems.

Can Anthropic’s AI Claude be trusted in combat? | The Take

Can Anthropic’s AI Claude be trusted in combat?| The Take Tools from Anthropic and OpenAI are being used by the Pentagon to make military decisions in Iran, guiding decisions could cost lives. Fast, powerful, or flawed, how have AI systems already changed how wars are fought?

Key Questions on the Role of Technology in the Expanding Middle East War

Tech Policy Press asked experts working at the intersection of technology policy, security, and international affairs to share what they are watching as the situation unfolds.

AI Now Team Updates

AI company Anthropic amends core safety principle amid growing competition in sector

But Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at independent research group the AI Now Institute, says despite Anthropic’s safety-first reputation, it has always fallen short when it comes to its attempts to prevent human harm.