Could AI face social media-style bans? Anthropic President Daniela Amodei reveals: ‘If we project some of challenges…’

As governments around the world grapple with the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, Anthropic President Daniela Amodei said the technology could one day face restrictions similar to those imposed on social media platforms in some countries, while stressing the need to learn from the mistakes of the social media era.

Asked whether AI could eventually face bans or regulations akin to those imposed on social media services, Daniela said it was "absolutely possible", according to a Bloomberg interview.

“I think it's absolutely possible. If the social media companies could go back in time and see the world that they see today, would they do anything differently? I like to think the answer to that is yes,” Daniela said.

She noted that AI developers have the advantage of learning from the challenges faced by social media companies, including concerns around child welfare, mental health and election integrity.

“I don't know. If we sort of project some of the challenges that the social media companies have faced around child welfare, mental health, election integrity, all of these topics, we're really lucky that we're second. We view it as our job to try and proactively think about all of the things that could go wrong. Because if we don't, who's going to?” she added.

In a detailed essay published on Wednesday, Amodei called for mandatory third-party evaluations of AI systems to measure potential dangers in areas such as cybersecurity and biological weapons. He wrote that if an AI model is found to “present unacceptable risks,” then “the government should have the power to block or deter deployment.”

The comments mark one of Amodei's most forceful appeals for tighter oversight of AI as the technology continues to advance rapidly. Last week, Anthropic also proposed establishing a framework under which governments and AI developers would jointly determine when to slow the pace of development to reduce potential risks associated with the technology.

US President Donald Trump, earlier this month, laid out a relatively light-touch strategy for dealing with AI-related cybersecurity risks through an executive order. The directive seeks voluntary access for the US government to advanced AI models for evaluation purposes but does not require developers to obtain formal government approval before deploying them.

“It is time to go beyond transparency to more serious and binding regulation of AI. I believe the best analogy, at least at the current stage of the exponential, is to cars, airplanes, or drugs — powerful technologies essential to the modern economy, but capable of killing large numbers of people if designed or operated poorly," Amodei stated.