Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has a message for AI executives who keep asking Washington to save them from themselves: you have hands. Use them.

Speaking Saturday on "The Axios Show," Bessent said AI leaders don't need the federal government to pump the brakes on their own technology. He reached for a memorable comparison, likening them to Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer from "The Silence of the Lambs."

“It’s kind of like Hannibal Lecter: Stop me before I kill again,” Bessent said. “This alarmism without solutions by some of the AI community — that’s not leadership.”

The White House Picks a Voluntary Pledge Over Rules

The remarks line up with how the administration handled a push last month from AI leaders for an organized industry slowdown. Those executives cited fears that the technology is getting out of control. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was among the leaders calling for stronger government guardrails and a slowdown in frontier AI development.

Instead of new rules, President Donald Trump convened AI CEOs at the White House. That meeting produced a voluntary pledge to self-police, which is a fancy way of saying the commitments are not binding law.

Bessent said the companies appear to be listening. He pointed to OpenAI's recent decision to shelve a new model after internal tests raised questions about whether it would follow user instructions. “The labs have been very cooperative,” he said.

Inside the Industry, the Safety Worries Haven't Gone Anywhere

Not everyone is buying the cooperative vibe. Sarah Heck, Anthropic's head of public policy, said last week on X, “You can’t do safety from second place.”

David Robinson publicly announced his resignation and criticized OpenAI's rapid development culture, arguing that the company is not exercising enough caution as its AI systems become more capable.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by MarketDash editors.