VP for Policy Design @americans4ri | Tech & National Security | IR & Foreign Policy | American Politics | All Things Midwestern | Opinions Mine
Arlington, VA
Joined April 2018
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Morgan Plummer retweeted
I wrote about my love for the film Master and Commander, in honour of Trafalgar Day this week spectator.com/article/in-pra…
One of my favorite authors once wrote, “life is made of ever so many partings welded together..”. As I get older, I’d hoped that they would eventually get easier, but I’ve generally found the opposite to be true. Today, we said goodbye to our family dog, Sonoma. This parting will be a rough one; I’ll miss her like hell. She was a great dog, and we were lucky to have her in our lives as long as we did.
Morgan Plummer retweeted
I feel like one service I can provide is trying to help sort through what feels like a big deal and what doesn't feel like a big deal, to try to help make sense of it all and not just make it feel like the sky is falling.
This one feels really overrated to me.
My understanding is these were user-authorized agents doing mostly-user-authorized things (think like asking Grok Bot check your bank balance), but they weren't *bank-authorized* and the banks seem kinda unprepared for this being possible.
No hacking of banks by AIs occurred here. No AIs went rogue while using bank web apps as far as we know.
SCOOP: Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents inside customer accounts, including some attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources told Axios.
The findings have alarmed banking executives, who are racing to restrict access to their systems as AI moves at a velocity faster than financial institutions can respond, multiple industry and bank executives told Axios.
Several banks are now preparing for worst-case and even “day after” scenarios, including how to rapidly secure or restore customer accounts if things go wrong, the people said.
Several bank executives told Axios they're struggling to distinguish between human users and AI agents. One executive said banks also struggle to determine whether agents are authorized by customers or potentially operating without their permission, more akin to rogue agent behavior.
Read my latest for Axios here: axios.com/2026/10/22/ai-agen…
Morgan Plummer retweeted
It's time for identity verification for AI Agents.
SCOOP: Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents inside customer accounts, including some attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources told Axios.
The findings have alarmed banking executives, who are racing to restrict access to their systems as AI moves at a velocity faster than financial institutions can respond, multiple industry and bank executives told Axios.
Several banks are now preparing for worst-case and even “day after” scenarios, including how to rapidly secure or restore customer accounts if things go wrong, the people said.
Several bank executives told Axios they're struggling to distinguish between human users and AI agents. One executive said banks also struggle to determine whether agents are authorized by customers or potentially operating without their permission, more akin to rogue agent behavior.
Read my latest for Axios here: axios.com/2026/10/22/ai-agen…
Morgan Plummer retweeted
Legit a major problem, can attest. The left needs to take AI seriously. If it's all just a "hustle," the left will be caught unprepared for the defining political challenge of our time. It will a world-historical error.
Morgan Plummer retweeted
I would say rush to this article, which I'm doing now. Anything by Stephen Biddle is certain to be one of the most trenchant pieces of military thinking you'll ever read.
No modern conflict has ended by destroying the enemy’s ability to resist—not even World War II. To end a war, both sides must choose to stop fighting, and those choices always require nontrivial bargaining. Misunderstanding the relationship between bargaining and fighting produces systematic failures to integrate negotiating strategy with campaign planning, from Afghanistan to Ukraine to the US war with Iran.
New piece in @ForeignAffairs with Stephen Biddle and Yuri Zhukov on the myth of military victory.
Morgan Plummer retweeted
“We have democratic institutions in this country that are specifically designed to protect the public, and it is the job of those institutions to help set those standards.”
ARI’s @mcplummer1789 on @WGCU on why AI’s safety standards can’t be left to developers alone. 📺
Morgan Plummer retweeted
Interesting and well-done post by the @forethought_org that is a real contribution to the debate on autonomous weapons.
newsletter.forethought.org/p…
Morgan Plummer retweeted
When companies define safety on their own terms, they can change their definition at will.
ARI’s blueprint for federal AI governance pairs binding safety standards with government-backed assurance and real visibility into the automation of AI research.
ari.us/research/responsible-…
Morgan Plummer retweeted
Little tidbit tucked into my latest—Moran told me he’s taking a look at that bill Beyer and Jacobs floated at The Curve 👀 transformernews.ai/p/nathani…
The new fellow being hired by @RepNateMoran looks set to be the only staffer recruited directly by a member of Congress to focus exclusively on AI
Will more follow? Story by @vronirwin
transformernews.ai/p/nathani…
Morgan Plummer retweeted
When it comes to to AI safety standards, the government - not AI companies - should write the rules.
Anthropic's proposal for federal legislation has some strong points, but it doesn't deliver the guardrails necessary to keep the public safe.
ari.us/ari-statement-on-anth…
Morgan Plummer retweeted
A lot of discussion about Anthropic's proposal for an AI framework. Let me start by saying, it's hard to put pen to paper and offer a detailed vision for a comprehensive framework. Credit to Anthropic for their serious effort. That said, parts of the draft raise real concerns.
Unfortunately the bill text that’s circulating does not meet the minimum requirements necessary for federal guardrails to keep AI development safe.
Critically, the proposed bill allows developers to set safety standards and loosen those same standards over time, leaving AI companies to write their own rules. This represents a status quo that we know doesn't work. The responsibility for crafting binding federal safety standards must rest with the government. Those standards should be strengthened as AI systems become more capable.
The bill also fails to provide the government a role in testing or inspection authority, instead depending on private markets that are not yet mature to hold AI companies accountable. Under the bill, evaluators self-certify, registration carries no power to deny or revoke, and the bill bars any agency standard from being “a condition of engagement.”
It's also worth raising issues with the bill’s preemption provisions. The bill would preempt existing protections in multiple states. There’s also no sunset on preemption and no condition tying preemption to the strength of federal guardrails. Under our own proposal, preemption is used only as a floor, not a ceiling for AI safeguards. 1/4
Morgan Plummer retweeted
An important piece. Our mania on drones is a lot of groupthink, I offer up controversially. If China is the pacing threat, we need a lot of the old-fashioned kind of stuff.
Drones, Missiles, and the U.S. Munitions Shortage cnas.org/publications/report… via @CNASdc
As someone whose feed is filled with AI related stuff, and being familiar with this video clip from Titanic, I totally thought this was going to be an analogy for something else entirely. Exercise left to reader as to what lol!
One of the most unforgettable stories featured in Titanic (1997) was inspired by the real-life courage of Benjamin Guggenheim, a wealthy American businessman traveling in first class when the ship struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912.
As the Titanic began sinking and lifeboats were being filled primarily with women and children, Guggenheim reportedly chose not to seek a place for himself. Instead, he and his valet, Victor Giglio, returned to their cabin and changed into formal evening attire, determined to face their final moments with dignity. Guggenheim is famously remembered for reportedly declaring that he wished to “die like a gentleman.”
According to survivor accounts, he also entrusted a steward with a final message for his wife, explaining that he had fulfilled his duty and that no woman would be left aboard the ship because Benjamin Guggenheim had acted like a coward. His story remains one of the Titanic disaster’s most poignant accounts of courage, sacrifice, and honor in the face of certain death.
Morgan Plummer retweeted
So it’s interesting because these are very smart people who have built a very powerful technology but they’re also oblivious about the economy and policymaking, so it makes you wonder how their blind spots will impact their predictions about the future.
This year has been a year of warning shots in the frontier AI space, but I sometimes wonder if that analogy is well understood by those using it. Each time something happens, the instinct seems to be to try to fix (or account for) the thing that just happened instead of the underlying issue. Hugging Face is a great example. Lots of kill switch and internal deployment bills introduced in Congress over the last 60 days, but still very few comprehensive frontier safety frameworks.
But this reaction misses the whole point of the analogy. When warning shots are fired by either law enforcement or soldiers, it’s to let you know, “hey, I have something here that can kill you and you’re now on notice that I intend to use it.” It’s not about dodging the individual bullets fired as warning shots - although that’s necessary - it’s about the gun being used to fire them. The gun is the thing that needs dealing with in order to get out of that situation alive.
Morgan Plummer retweeted
Admiral McRaven: "Our current leaders are shameless and ignoble. They have no sense of dignity or honor. They seem to believe that the performance of curel power is what makes a nation great: the spectacle, the show, the crude theatrics of a tough guy. Nothing could be further from the truth."
theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1…
Really important contribution to the national security and LAWS dialogue here by @mchorowitz and @Lauren_A_Kahn! Strongly recommend!
🚨🚨 brand new from me & @Lauren_A_Kahn - explainer on autonomous weapons (including cool graphics!) and how the AI and weapons issue is different than the frontier AI safety issue! Check it out and share! cfr.org/articles/the-autonom… cc @CFR_org
