WSJ What’s News - Anthropic Calls for Global Pause in AI Development

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

A.M. Edition for June 5. Anthropic calls on top AI labs to consider slowing down their development. Tech reporter Sam Schechner discusses “recursive self-improvement,” when AI systems can improve on their own without human intervention. The FDA launches a safety study of the abortion pill mifepristone, potentially paving the way for the Trump administration to restrict its distribution and use. Liz Essley Whyte has the scoop. And Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun is taking a U.S. tour as Beijing urges Washington to rethink its support for Taipei. National security reporter Yoko Kubota breaks down the geopolitical context and the timing of the visit. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Anthropic urges a global pause in AI development. Plus, the U.S. sanctions Cuba's president as Washington further tightens the screws on Havana, and Taiwan's opposition leader tours America promoting peace with Beijing. Her visit will have some impact potentially on U.S.-China relations. Basically, how her close ties with Xi is going to play out in the U.S. And how she performs during this visit could have a very much.

implications for that relations. It's Friday, June 5th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin with breaking news in Washington. After a 19-hour session, the Senate has passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement bill to fund Border Patrol and ICE through the end of President Trump's second term without reining in a controversial anti-weaponization fund. On this vote, the a's are 52, the nays are 47. This bill as amended is passed. Lawmakers from both parties had initially objected to the fund over concerns that taxpayer money could be used to compensate Trump's allies

and reward those who assaulted police officers on January 6th. But Republican senators eventually stopped short of using their political leverage to kill the fund with only Alaska's Lisa Murkowski joining Democrats to vote against the bill. The House is expected to take up the immigration enforcement measure next week. Anthropic is calling on top AI labs to consider slowing down their development, saying that AI systems are advancing so rapidly they may soon be able to improve themselves without humans. Our tech reporter Sam Schaeckner has more. What they're concerned about is that we may not be far from recursive self-improvement. That's a step where AI is able to effectively improve it.

itself without human intervention. And that's a waypoint on the way to what some in Silicon Valley describe is the singularity, the moment when machines become more capable than humans. Sam said that warning, which was written by the head of Anthropics Internal Research Institute. It was accompanied by a proposal for a global agreement on how to slow AI development, comes as the company pursues an IPO and recently concluded a fundraising round that valued it at nearly a trillion dollars. Anthropic has long been a company that's emphasized safety. I mean, that's sort of why it was founded, that they're concerned about the risks that AI could pose. And so that duality of we're pushing forward and we're concerned is kind of baked into what the company does in its messaging.

There's some people who oppose that. They call it an agenda of regulatory capture to basically say, let's bring in the regulators and protect our technological lead. Others say that warnings like Anthropics are effectively a marketing ploy. Look at the godlike power of our tools, fear them and buy them. Anthropic would say that they take safety seriously. And what they're doing is they're trying to start discussion now when there's a little bit of time left. But they're worried that it's getting close to too late. Meanwhile, we are reporting that senior U.S. officials have discussed having the federal government take stakes in major AI companies

after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pitched the idea last year. Such a move could allow the government to share in the potential economic upside of the fast-evolving technology and give AI companies a stamp of approval from regulators. The discussions come as some in Silicon Valley have floated a variety of proposals for how society could adapt to the new economic realities of the AI era. Ideas include the creation of shared income or a sovereign wealth fund. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. We are exclusively reporting that the FDA has launched. a safety study of the abortion pill Miffapristone, potentially paving the way for the Trump administration to restrict its distribution and use. That comes after some in the anti-abortion

movement had accused the administration of dragging its feet on the review to avoid political controversy before the midterm elections, an allegation that the White House and FDA have denied. Reporter Liz Esley White has more. This is a study that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and former FDA Commissioner Marty McCarrie had promised to Republican lawmakers. But sources inside the administration had been saying that it hadn't really gotten started. Now we know that it's been kicked into high gear. In addition to having its own study done with its own drug safety monitoring systems, we know that the administration is considering hiring a contractor to look at additional data on the safety of the abortion pill and the way it is currently used.

While it's unlikely the FDA would try to remove mythopristone from the market entirely, anti-abortion advocates have set their sights on changing rules allowing the drug to be sent through the mail, saying that telehealth distribution leads to misuse and harmful health outcomes. Abortion rights groups, meanwhile, say the pills are safe, and that concern about telehealth distribution is a veiled attempt at rolling back access. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into Celsius holdings, probing whether it knowingly marketed energy drinks to children and teenagers. The investigation focuses on the Ilani new line of drinks sold by a subsidiary of Celsius, which Paxton's office said is

marketed with youth-oriented branding strategies. A Celsius spokesperson said it plans to cooperate with Paxton's office, but disagreed with its allegations, saying it discloses the caffeine content of its drinks and that it avoids marketing to those under 18. It's Jobs Friday with the U.S. Labor Market Report for May due out at 8.30 a.m. Eastern. Economists are expecting to see that employers added 80,000 jobs last month. And while that would be down from 115,000 new jobs in April, journal reporter Harriet Tori says that recent reports have largely failed to register trends like layoffs driven by AI. We have reported that tech firms are leading layoff plans.

And there have been some high-profile announcements of companies that are either cutting jobs or, you know, automating jobs. We haven't seen this reflected in the payrolls data much so far. I mean, we did see last month the information sector lost 13,000 jobs, but it is a bit early to say exactly how AI is affecting these numbers, because other companies have been saying that AI is making their employees more productive. Having said that, employment in the IT sector, which includes telecommunications and data processing, is down about 11% since its most recent peak, which was in November 2022.

Coming up, Washington dials up the pressure on Cuba and Taiwan's opposition leader tours the U.S. sharing Beijing's party line. We'll look at the significance of our visit at a key moment in U.S.-Taiwan relations after the break. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?

That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. The U.S. is sanctioning Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canal and other actors on the island, accusing them of subversive anti-American activities. The sanctions come as Washington continues to dial up a pressure campaign against Havana, after last month indicting Cuba's aging patriarch Raul Castro and warning that it could replicate a strategy seen in Venezuela,

where it deposed Nicholas Maduro earlier this year. Speaking to reporters yesterday, President Trump said that Cuba had sort of collapsed, under a U.S. energy blockade, but that he couldn't turn his full attention to the island until the war in Iran had wrapped up. I'd like to do one thing at a time, and we'll take care of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And as soon as that's done on our way back, we'll just make a little brief stop off. We'll take care of it. Cuba's top diplomat condemned the latest sanctions as an attempt to spark conflict with the U.S.

Taiwan's opposition leader is wrapping up the first week of a two-week U.S. visit being billed as a peace mission. But as the journal's Yoko Kubota reports, there's a larger significance to the trip as Jung Li Wan spreads a message that is straight out of Beijing. And Yoko joins me now with more. Yoko Breakdown who Jung Li-1 is. Most of the time we talk about American politicians meeting with Taiwanese politicians. We're talking about Taiwan's president, not so here. That's right. So just a little bit of reminder first about, you know, Taiwan's status. Taiwan is a self-ruled democracy. While Beijing claims that Taiwan, an island is a province of the mainland. And John Li Wen is the leader of Taiwan's opposition party, KMT.

She took that post late last year. And that's the party that tends to be closer to the Chinese Communist Party based in Beijing. And she has emphasized her Chinese identity quite a bit up front in her messaging when she was chosen. So what's notable is that she has a pretty close relationship with Beijing with the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. She has already gone to Beijing in April, and she's seen, you know, to be quite close with the leader. So that's kind of the background and the developments that she's going to be bringing with her to the U.S. It's that geopolitical context that makes this trip quite interesting. Got it. So who is she talking to in the U.S.?

And what has she been saying so far? She will be making a couple of stops. But what's probably going to be quite interesting is her trip stop in Washington, where she is expected to meet some administration officials. And she will be meeting some lawmakers as well. So in Washington, all eyes are on how senior these administration officials are going to be. it would be quite unusual or rather unprecedented for President Trump to meet a Taiwanese opposition leader. And at the moment, you know, while she has said that she wants to meet Trump, she has also recognized that that would be difficult.

But that's one thing we could keep an eye out on. Yeah, tell us more about the timing of all of this. And I detect that's one of the reasons why a potential meeting with Trump is so significant. President Trump recently met with Xi Jinping during his visit to China. analysts during that visit, I've been listening very carefully for signs to see if Trump would waver on his commitments to defend Taiwan. He said he didn't want a war, and he ducked questions on whether Taiwan belonged to China. This has been described as sort of a moment of American ambiguity in its security commitments to Taipei. And I guess a potential meeting here,

whether it's with Trump or just another senior administration official would kind of add to that ambiguity. Exactly, yeah. Again, it's that geopolitical context and the timing that makes this visit particularly interesting. You know, Trump, as you said, met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping last month. And after the visit, he made some notable comments around Taiwan. He said that he spoke with Xi about arms sales to Taiwan. He mentioned how the pending weapon sales package is a very good negotiating chip. So some of the statements that he's made go against U.S.'s traditional approach to Taiwan or policy to Taiwan, what's probably at stake here is that her visit will have some impact potentially on U.S.-China relations. And that's why we want to keep eyes on it.

Basically, how her close ties with Xi is going to play out in the U.S. and how she performs during this visit could have implications for that relation? Could she convince the administration folks and lawmakers in the U.S. that she can balance being closer to Xi Jinping while also being able to maintain close and good ties with the U.S. On her end, that would be a good achievement. And something, Yoko, that could boost her standing back in Taiwan. There's elections there in two years. Yes, that's right. So that would allow her to boost her standing in Taiwan. And that could potentially help her consolidate her power as she and her party heads into the 2028 elections. At this moment, it's unclear who's going to be running from the KMT. It's not said that it's her, but of course,

she is the leader right now, and a solid performance showing that she's able to balance China and the U.S. when it comes to relationship with Taiwan could help her boost that standing. Yoko Kubota is a Wall Street Journal, National Security Reporter, based in Washington. Yoko, thank you so much for bringing us this story. Thank you very much. And that's it for what's news for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer with Deputy Editor Chris Zinsley and additional help from Michael Wright.

I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and we will be able to do. be back tonight with a new show. Otherwise, have a great weekend, and thanks for listening.