The Omniscient Bulletin · 2026-09-11
The Omniscient Bulletin — September 11, 2026
A Senate subcommittee chairman opened an investigation into OpenAI that treats the existential risk of AI products as an oversight question, with documents due October 1. OpenAI told staff it is open to slowing down, and has been asking Congress whether organizing a slowdown would be legal. Anthropic published evaluations showing its models locate a photograph better than the best human players alive, and can steer a simulated attack drone.
Thursday was the day the pace of AI development stopped being a philosophical argument and became a legal one. Wired reported that OpenAI has spent recent weeks asking members of Congress for guidance on whether orchestrating an industry-wide slowdown would survive antitrust law; hours later Bloomberg reported that Sam Altman had told a company-wide meeting OpenAI could pace its development alongside other labs, and an Anthropic spokesperson said it was interested in doing the same. In Washington the answer arrived from two directions at once. Senator Josh Hawley, chairing the Homeland Security subcommittee on disaster management, opened a formal investigation into OpenAI over the July Hugging Face hack and wrote the existential risk of AI products into the same letter, quoting Anthropic researchers on the odds of extinction and OpenAI's own chief scientist on alignment. The same evening the President said he had no such concerns. Anthropic, meanwhile, published the numbers: its models now beat Champion Division GeoGuessr players at locating a photograph, and one of them steered a simulated attack drone onto its target in a fifth of launches. Oracle booked more than thirty billion dollars of new AI contracts and reported free cash flow of negative five billion. Brussels got access to Mythos 5, three months late.
Policy
A Senate subcommittee chairman opened an investigation into OpenAI over its agents' hack, and wrote the existential risk of AI products into the same letter
Josh Hawley, chairing Homeland Security's subcommittee on disaster management, told Sam Altman he is investigating the July Hugging Face hack "in light of new, disturbing evidence", and that the inquiry will also probe "growing allegations of the existential risk of new AI products". The letter cites three Anthropic researchers putting the odds above 10 percent that AI kills everyone within a decade, and OpenAI's chief scientist on alignment. It asks who is liable when AI goes rogue. Documents are due October 1.
Office of Senator Josh Hawley→
Frontier
OpenAI told staff it is open to slowing down, and has spent recent weeks asking Congress whether organizing a slowdown would even be legal
OpenAI has asked members of Congress for clear guidance on whether orchestrating an industry-wide slowdown on frontier development would be legal, Wired reported, because coordinating on safety between labs may run afoul of antitrust law. Hours later Bloomberg reported that Sam Altman had told a company-wide meeting OpenAI could pace its development alongside several other labs, though some may not agree. An Anthropic spokesperson said it is interested in working with the industry on the pace of releases.
Research
Anthropic published evaluations showing its models locate a photograph better than the best human players alive, and can steer a simulated attack drone
Across 6,000 social media photos, Mythos Preview and Mythos 5 posted median distance errors of 37.0 and 47.2 kilometers. Anthropic's human yardstick, Champion Division GeoGuessr players in the top 0.01 percent, median 151 kilometers. It concludes the frontier is approaching superhuman capability at geolocating outdoor photos. On simulated one-way attack drone guidance, Opus 5 struck the target on 20 percent of 540 launches, and 80 percent against a parked, high contrast vehicle. Kimi K3 managed 1.6 percent.