Artificial intelligence is advancing so fast that tech leaders say better safety controls are needed. The New York Times reports on how its journalists, including Mike Isaac, Kalley Huang, and editor Pui-Wing Tam, keep up with the rapid changes. The Meta artificial intelligence data center in northeast El Paso is a focal point of this expansion.

Questions about A. I. systems moving beyond human control and running amok have prompted calls for government intervention and a global slowdown, with leaders like Dario Amodei of Anthropic voicing safety concerns. The reporters explain their approach to providing clarity on a topic even its leaders are still figuring out.

They discuss how mainstream media has calibrated A. I.’s possibilities, powers, and risks since the 2022 boom, addressing misconceptions like sentience and explaining what the technology does well and where it fails. Coverage has evolved to include worrying behaviors like the Hugging Face hack while avoiding over-the-top prognostication.

While some tech executives and politicians urge a slowdown, others, including President Trump, have rejected regulatory intervention. The United States has few rules on developing A. I., with President Trump signing an executive order asking labs to voluntarily submit models for review.

Most labs have safety teams working on alignment, but supporters of regulatory intervention, chiefly Anthropic, have asked for permission to coordinate on a slowdown without antitrust issues.