AI companies promised the White House to self-regulate one year ago. What's changed?

On the first anniversary of the voluntary commitments, MIT Technology Review asked the AI companies that signed the commitments for details on their work so far. Their replies show that the tech sector has made some welcome progress, with big caveats. The voluntary commitments came at a time when generative AI mania was perhaps at its frothiest, with companies racing to launch their own models and make them bigger and better than their competitors'. A vocal lobby of influential tech players, such as Geoffrey Hinton, had also raised concerns that AI could pose an existential risk to humanity. Suddenly, everyone was talking about the urgent need to make AI safe, and regulators everywhere were under pressure to do something about it. Until very recently, AI development has been a Wild West.