Bessent tells AI developers to carry their own legal risk

The question put to Bessent was whether he agreed with Trump's opposition to a regulatory crackdown on AI, and he answered it by assigning responsibility. "It is humans who are responsible, not the AI," he said ^[2]. Quartz described the shield as a key demand from some in the industry ^[3]. Neither CNBC nor Quartz reported a bill or an executive order that would create one.

The administration is meanwhile taking on an AI role of a different kind. Bessent said he met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng for 12 hours on Sunday. By his account, the focal point of that session was the November 10 expiry of the temporary US-China trade truce ^[9][14]. AI got a share of the remaining time: the two discussed it and formalized conversations that Bessent expects to continue in Shenzhen later this year ^[10]. He put the aim of the proposed incident channel this way: "so both sides can agree on what the leading AI dangers are, whether it's uncontrollable agents, whether it's non-state actors in cyber, non-state actors in bio weapons" ^[13].

The rest of the interview was about rates, which set a developer's cost of capital. The 10-year Treasury yield rose above 5% last week for the first time since 2007 ^[4]. That is about 100 basis points above where it stood when the Iran war began in late February, so the February level was near 4% ^[5][16]. The FOMC's first hike since 2023 took the target range to 3.75% to 4% ^[12], which leaves the 10-year roughly a point above the top of the policy range ^[17]. Mortgages topped 7% this month for the first time in more than a year ^[11].

Treasury bought back more than $5 billion of 10-year and 20-year notes on September 10, and Bessent called the operation "successful" at the House Financial Services Committee on September 15 ^[6]. "There was the counterfactual of what it would have done," he told the committee ^[7].

The measurable variable for an AI equity holder this week is the 100 basis points. A discount rate that moved goes into a model; federal immunity nobody has drafted gives you no number to put there. The counter-case is real. Preemption language tends to arrive inside larger bills, and a president who strongly supports the expansion of AI companies and data centers ^[8] can overrule his Treasury secretary at any point. Two developments would break the view: a preemption clause surfacing in federal legislation, or an insurer writing AI liability cover at a published price developers actually pay. Bessent expects the rates half of the problem to reverse without either. "Once we get on the other side of this conflict, which we will, I think the oil markets are going to be more supplied than they previously were, and rates should come down," he said ^[15].