The AI safety debate is confusing. Here's our guide to the different factions

The battle over AI's promise and perils is not a clash between two opposing sides, but a debate among a range of competing voices and ideologies. Here is a guide to who's who in that debate.

<img src='https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5333x3000+0+0/resize/5333x3000!/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F9e%2Fe9%2F740a82844c44bf409fd71dd0fcba%2F2026-09-ai-factions-final.jpg' alt='Clockwise from top left: former Google AI research scientist Timnit Gebru, Anthropic Co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, Steve Bannon, computer scientist and cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Hinton, researcher Fei-Fei Li.'/><p>The battle over AI's promise and perils is not a clash between two opposing sides, but a debate among a range of competing voices and ideologies. Here is a guide to who's who in that debate.</p><p>(Image credit: AFP via Getty Images)</p><img src='https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=nx-s1-5979085' />