Recent Press
Watchtower tracks changes to, and violations of, corporate AI safety policies. Click any entry for further details. Want to help track AI companies?
Research, updates, and insights from the frontlines of AI accountability.
Why is the biggest name in AI late to the AI coding revolution?
The state of AI is less about android assassins after young waitresses and more about self-regulation of the tech industry and the pressing need to align the capabilities of artificial intelligence with human ethics and values.
The company is drifting from its longtime backer and toward for-profit status—but not without resistance.
AI companies continue to reduce evidence of Biden-era AI safety policy from their communications as attitudes shift under Trump.
In the race to build machines that can outthink humans, the tech founder says there is one thing that would make him stop.
A new report dubbed “The OpenAI Files” aims to shed light on the inner workings of the leading AI company.
It has charts and data visualizations, including the authors’ best guess at OpenAI’s corporate structure.
Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, has missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework, as noted by watchdog group The Midas Project.
Advocacy groups say OpenAI's nonprofit still isn't independent — and $100 billion may not be enough.
From Bill Clinton’s “master of disaster” to a Kamala Harris confidant, the maker of ChatGPT has stockpiled well-connected Democrats as it tries to muscle through a business transformation in deep-blue California.
Julie Yukari, a musician based in Rio de Janeiro, posted a photo taken by her fiancé to the social media site X just before midnight on New Year's Eve showing her in a red dress snuggling in bed with her black cat, Nori.
OpenAI completed its restructure, with a nonprofit Foundation holding a $130B stake in the for-profit arm—just below Microsoft's $135B.
With the U.S. government stepping away from AI safety and trillion-dollar companies rewriting their ethical playbooks, the Midas Project is doing the job no one else will: keeping the receipts.
Seven nonprofit groups that have criticized OpenAI say it sent them wide-ranging subpoenas as part of its litigation against Elon Musk.
The company is pursuing aggressive legal tactics against its opponents.
Before we get to today’s main column about Grok 4, we wanted to share four things we learned from the craziness on Friday, when Google snatched the CEO and technology behind Windsurf, a competitor to Cursor that OpenAI had agreed to buy for $3 billion just two months ago.
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Frequently asked questions
Have more questions? Our team is happy to help, contact us.
We engage in a combination of research, outreach, and public advocacy to ensure that AI companies are meeting public expectations and living up to their past promises, in order to ensure responsible AI development and deployment.
We review technical literature, regulatory guidance, and case studies to distill concrete measures that will meaningfully improve public safety — such as frontier-model risk assessments, red-teaming requirements, and whistle-blower protections — and advocate for the most important voluntary steps that companies can take today to ensure they are acting responsibly.
We also monitor whether companies follow their stated policies and industry norms. When we find evidence of back-tracking or inadequate risk controls, we document it and call for corrective action — mobilizing employees, customers, and civil-society allies until the company adopts the necessary safeguards.
Finally, we publicize our research to inform the public of how AI companies stack up on safety and responsibility. We release our work in the form of scorecards, independent reports, open letters, and long-form writing so that regulators, investors, and the wider public can see how individual developers perform on safety and responsibility.
Various AI experts including Nick Bostrom and Stuart Russell have compared the development of advanced AI to the myth of King Midas.
According to legend, King Midas was once granted one wish by the god Dionysus: that everything he touched would turn to gold. At first, he was thrilled with his new powers. But the King soon discovered that he couldn’t touch food, water, or even his family without instantly turning them to metal. In other words, he got exactly what he wanted in pursuit of immense wealth — and it turned out it wasn’t what he wanted at all.
Much like King Midas, AI companies are now eagerly pursuing incredible wealth and power by developing increasingly powerful AI systems. But ensuring that these systems act in alignment with our values is still an unsolved technical problem. If we misspecify even a single goal for these systems, how will we prevent them from causing an incredible catastrophe – if they follow our instructions at all?
In the words of Stuart Russell, “If you continue on the current path, the better AI gets, the worse things get for us. For any given incorrectly stated objective, the better a system achieves that objective, the worse it is.” The Midas Project exists to ensure that AI companies do not take this extraordinary gamble without public accountability and oversight.
The Midas Project is a nonprofit organization founded in early 2024 by Tyler Johnston. Our work is supported by a small core team and a wider base of volunteers and supporters. We are a nonprofit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization that relies on donations from the public.
No. One of our central values is being pro-technology.
Progress in technology has improved lives for millions of people around the globe (after all, without it, we wouldn’t have penicillin, air conditioning, or the internet). Artificial intelligence is already being used to help improve medicine, education, and overall living standards. We believe this progress should continue, and we hope AI will be a positive force in the world.
But we may not be on track to realize this future. Without technical breakthroughs, we risk developing powerful AI systems that act against user intent, or can be misused by bad actors to cause tremendous harm. Powerful AI could also concentrate unprecedented power among a handful of AI companies and exacerbate social inequality. To avoid these downsides, AI must be developed with caution, transparency, and public oversight. That’s why The Midas Project is committed to raising awareness about the risks of AI and ensuring that everyone is given a chance to make their voice heard.
If you’d like to get involved, consider signing up for our newsletter, joining as an official volunteer, or making a charitable donation today.
You can email us at info@themidasproject.com, or reach out via the form on our contact page.















