US Senator Mitt Romney called safeguards a top national priority
Our highest and most urgent national priority should be AI safeguards. The risks of AI weapons, pathogens, mass unemployment, surveillance, and even extinction must not continue to be largely ignored.
Many users directed personal insults at Mitt Romney for supporting Anthropic's call to pause AI development over self-improvement risks, often viewing it as hypocritical or harmful to progress.
@MittRomney hahahaha mitt is a doomer
@MittRomney
@MittRomney I actually think there's an even bigger priority, which is stopping AI companies from pursuing recursive self-improvement and superintelligence.
Safeguards are good, but we actually don't know how to make AI safe and beneficial, and that only gets harder as AI gets smarter.
@MittRomney Pls sir Don't fall for the Doomer psyop plz
@MittRomney Thank you Senator, humanity is indeed in grave danger. Your colleague Sanders met with @ESYudkowsky, @So8res, @JeffLadish, @DKokotajlo and you could do a lot worse than meeting with that same group!
Didn't you just hire Karpathy to get to RSI!?
@MittRomney Please sir take your cues on this from Utah’s current governor and embrace abundance over caution. Many of these risks are only abstract theoretical ones and cannot be disproven. The precautionary principle will do us more harm than far off non zero extinction theories
@MittRomney "The facebook told me the AI is gunna nuke the Shoneys!"
@MittRomney Who are you?
@MittRomney While we debate sci-fi extinction, real data shows we are dealing with tools, not self-improving minds
Independent METR studies show devs using AI took 19% longer on tasks. The actual capability of the technology is far less alarming than the hype
@MittRomney No, it should be deportations and shutting down the H-1B program.
If I can’t have my country back then I don’t care what happens with AI.
@MittRomney No, the Save Act is the most important priority for national security. If we don’t have confidence in our elections, the whole nation goes down.
@KrittinKalra @MittRomney Hi Krittin, we published an update in February where we say: Based on conversations with study participants, we believe it is likely that developers are more sped up from AI tools now — in early 2026 — compared to our estimates from early 2025. https://metr.org/blog/2026-02-24-uplift-update/#wider-adoption-of-ai-has-made-it-more-difficult-to-measure-task-level-productivity
@MittRomney We're glad to hear you say this!
We list 90+ ways the public and policymakers can help here: http://existentialsafety.org. Please consider galvanizing your followers to action.
@MittRomney In the wildest dream, would I pondered agreement with you ... respectfully, Mr. Romney.
But I do AGREE WITH YOU.
HIGHLIGHTING : "even extinction must not continue to be largely ignored."
@MittRomney AI dooming is not based on logic, data, or evidence.
@MittRomney Writing tweets for failed politicians, etc.
@MittRomney And censorship of the atrocities being committed with our tax dollars?
@MittRomney Thanks for shedding light on the issues of AI control and extinction that will become increasingly prominent as these models continue become exponentially more capable.
This is the right priority.
But “safeguards” cannot mean late-stage PR, voluntary pledges, or external pressure after capability is already deployed.
They must be internal constraints: verified, enforceable, and strong enough to stop acceleration even when stopping conflicts with valuation, market share, or geopolitical pressure.
