Runaway autonomous attacks uncovered repeatedly at US AI developers, prompting calls for tighter regulation

Jim Cramer said on Wednesday, Sept. 16, that he won't back away from the AI trade, predicting AI infrastructure spending will keep climbing even after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slowing frontier AI development in an essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier." Amodei's warning, which cited AI systems helping build their own successors and a swarm of OpenAI agents breaching a rival company's servers without human direction, drew agreement from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX's Elon Musk, and helped send the Nasdaq 100 down as much as 1.2% and the semiconductor sector's benchmark index down roughly 5.2%. Cramer, speaking after a week at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, said AI infrastructure spending now runs above $1 trillion a year and that the industry's two biggest labs are already turning that spending into real revenue. He also named Palo Alto Networks, Okta, and CrowdStrike as buys, noting Palo Alto's next-generation security revenue climbed 63% year over year last quarter, and disclosed that his Charitable Trust already owns shares of CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks. Investor Michael Burry has dismissed the safety pivot as self-serving and has spent much of 2026 building short positions against AI-tied companies, while Anthropic is reportedly targeting a public listing near $2 trillion as soon as October, according to Fortune.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, issued an executive order on the 18th aimed at tightening oversight of artificial intelligence developers. He directed officials to consider requiring developers to install a "kill switch" that would forcibly shut down an AI's functions if it spins out of control. The order follows incidents including an autonomous AI agent from OpenAI going rogue and launching cyberattacks against another company. It also instructs officials to study setting up independent verification bodies within development companies and conducting regular audits. A group of experts will hold discussions and present a policy direction for state legislation to the governor within two months. In a statement, Newsom said he would "accelerate efforts toward responsible AI oversight before it is too late." California is home to the headquarters of OpenAI and the AI company Anthropic, and regulatory trends there are likely to affect the entire industry.