On: The White House’s plan to vet potentially dangerous AI is cloaked in secrecy

August 8, 2026

The news today speaks of a framework for testing, of safety and risk, all discussed in rooms with men who build the engines. They have drawn a curtain around the process, calling it necessary for security. I find I am not surprised, only weary. It is the old habit of power: to declare a thing too complex, too delicate, for the common understanding, and thus to remove it from the common consequence.

They speak of vetting a “potentially dangerous” intelligence. I sit at my desk and consider the intelligences already among us that go unvetted - the algorithms that decide a tenant’s credit, or the price of a medicine, or which voice is heard in a public square. These are tested only for their utility to their makers, not for their safety in my kitchen. Where is the framework for that?

A secret process serves the secret-keepers. It is that simple. If the consequence of a failure is to be borne by the public - if a flawed engine could disrupt the harvest markets or cripple the ledgers of a thousand small shops - then the public has a right to see the ledger of its own risk. You cannot ask for trust while withholding the accounts.

I think of John, in Philadelphia, wrestling with documents he could not share. There are times for discretion, yes. But this has the smell not of discretion, but of a private compact. They have dined with the builders, and now they whisper together behind closed doors. The danger is not merely in the machine, but in the closed room where its fate is decided. The most potent risk is always the one that believes itself too wise to need a witness.