# AI Development Is Trapped in a Collective-Action Race by Ezra Klein > “OpenAI was founded because its co-founders thought Google DeepMind would be reckless. Anthropic was formed by OpenAI employees who thought OpenAI had become reckless. xAI was formed because Elon Musk thought OpenAI and Anthropic were dangerously woke. The United States is racing forward in part because it is worried about what happens if China gets to self-improving AI first. The result is a tragic collective-action problem. The AIs we are building are not safe, but the CEOs and politicians fear that the other companies and countries building AI are even less concerned with safety and ethics than we are.” > **— Ezra Klein**, *The Ezra Klein Show, September 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Timecoded episode recording:** [*The Ezra Klein Show* at 18:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjZ90V_JREk&t=1086s) — recording and precise locator for the source object preserved in this Reminder. - **Reconciled source dossier:** [[research/Why Are We Sprinting Off the AI Cliff - Ezra Klein on Recursive Self-Improvement|Why Are We Sprinting Off the AI Cliff?]] — preserves broadcast order, speaker attribution, editorial conventions and the surrounding argument. - **Editorial treatment:** The poster text follows the reconciled source object without substantive alteration; spoken punctuation and transcript lineation are normalized for reading. - **Context:** Klein traces how successive laboratories were founded in response to distrust of other laboratories, producing a collective-action trap. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/Vertically Integrating an AI Superpower from AI Factory to Citizen|Vertically Integrating an AI Superpower]] - **Article:** [[articles/Safety Discourse Is Transition Discourse|Safety Discourse Is Transition Discourse]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public|The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public]] - **Article:** [[articles/AI-Tech Doomerism and Anti-Science Panic|AI-Tech Doomerism and Anti-Science Panic]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/AI Race Dynamics|AI Race Dynamics]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/AI Race Dynamics|AI Race Dynamics]] - [[wiki/Collective Action Problem|Collective Action Problem]] - [[wiki/OpenAI|OpenAI]] - [[wiki/Anthropic|Anthropic]] - [[wiki/xAI|xAI]] - [[wiki/DeepMind|DeepMind]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “OpenAI was founded because its co-founders thought Google DeepMind would be reckless. Anthropic was formed by OpenAI employees who thought OpenAI had become reckless. xAI was formed because Elon Musk thought OpenAI and Anthropic were dangerously woke. The United States is racing forward in part because it is worried about what happens if China gets to self-improving AI first. The result is a tragic collective-action problem. The AIs we are building are not safe, but the CEOs and politicians fear that the other companies and countries building AI are even less concerned with safety and ethics than we are.” — Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show, September 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-ezra-klein-ai-development-collective-action-race ```