𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗳𝗳 𝗦𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵
Howard Lutnick knows how to rebuild.
On September 11, 2001, he survived because he took his son to kindergarten. His firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, lost 658 employees that day. The company lost 1 million dollars every day after the attack.
Lutnick did not close the firm. He rebuilt it. He restarted trading in one week. He paid 180 million dollars to the families of the victims. Today, the firm employs 12,000 people.
Now, Lutnick holds a different kind of power.
As Secretary of Commerce, he has the authority to shut down frontier AI. He recently ordered Anthropic to turn off its two most powerful models. He gave them only ninety minutes of notice.
He did not use AI expertise to make this move. He used authority.
His department used export control rules. These rules were made for physical goods like weapons and chips. Now, he uses them on software.
The shutdown happened three days after the Fable 5 model launched. Anthropic had worked with the US government to test the model. The government asked them to delay the release. Anthropic said no. Then the letter arrived.
This creates a new precedent.
A government official can shut down a global software product with a single letter. He does not need a court order. He does not need new laws.
The tech community is divided. Some experts want AI guardrails. Others do not want this type of control.
Lutnick’s approach to AI looks more like trade enforcement than safety research. If a product crosses a line, he pulls it.
He is a man who knows what it feels like to lose everything. The question is how he will use this new power. Will he use it with care, or will he use it to expand his reach?
Source: https://dev.to/thesythesis/the-off-switch-395c
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