AI policy is now close enough to the frontier labs that personal networks can become public governance issues. The Guardian's reporting on a UK AI policy figure leaving after Anthropic conflict concerns shows how quickly trust questions can overtake technical policy work.
The pattern is not unique to one country. Governments need people who understand model development, but the pool of experts often overlaps with labs, investors, and advocacy groups that have direct stakes in regulation.
The answer is not to exclude technical expertise. It is to make disclosure, recusal, and institutional independence strong enough that policy decisions can survive scrutiny when billions of dollars and national strategies are involved.
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