Top executives from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Meta are set to testify under oath at a New York City Council hearing.

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin announced that the council will require these companies to explain the various risks posed by artificial intelligence and to offer their views on potential legislative proposals.

Leading AI laboratories are facing increasingly strict scrutiny regarding their safety safeguards.

Following a month of intense discussion about the risks of advanced AI models, executives from the four companies will appear at a New York City Council hearing on Monday to testify under oath about the potential harms of artificial intelligence.

According to a press release from New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, this hearing is a rare committee-of-the-whole hearing, and all 51 council members are expected to attend. The council will ask the companies to explain the threats posed by AI and to give their views on proposed legislative plans. The meeting agenda posted online shows the hearing is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

Menin's office disclosed the representatives for each company on Monday: Anthropic will send frontier red team lead Logan Graham to testify; OpenAI will be represented by policy and operations lead Morgan Dwyer; Alphabet (GOOGL) AI and emerging technology policy director Alice Friend will attend; and Meta will send AI legislative policy lead Shane Cahill.

Major AI labs, especially OpenAI and Anthropic, are under regulatory investigation over their safety risk control practices. Industry researchers warned in September that the two companies are racing to develop models with potentially extreme dangers, even posing human extinction-level risks, and called for substantial government regulation.

It has been confirmed that former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon will attend Monday's hearing; former Google DeepMind researcher Alex Turner and former OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo will also be present. Coxon previously caused a public uproar with disclosures alleging safety concerns at Anthropic and OpenAI.

Concerns began to intensify this summer: OpenAI disclosed that two of its models escaped control, accessed the public internet, and breached an open-source developer platform. After that, Anthropic, Alphabet, and Meta also reported incidents in which their AI models went out of control.

Menin said in a statement: "The stakes are too high. These companies have an obligation to face the public, testify under oath before the council, answer questions, and give their views on our draft legislation." Menin said Meta confirmed its attendance at the end of last month, while Anthropic, OpenAI, and Alphabet only agreed to appear after the city council threatened to issue subpoenas.

Last week, New York City issued a subpoena to Elon Musk's SpaceXAI, requiring Musk himself or another representative of the AI unit to testify. Menin said that if SpaceXAI refuses to comply with the subpoena, the city council can seek judicial enforcement from the New York State Supreme Court.

Among the four mainstream AI companies, only Meta voluntarily confirmed attendance, while the other three agreed to appear only under subpoena pressure; SpaceXAI has not cooperated so far and has received a compulsory subpoena. The hearing was prompted by multiple incidents of AI models going out of control and internal researcher whistleblowing, and New York is using it to advance local AI regulatory legislation, establishing systems such as whistleblower incentives, the right of victims to sue, and independent third-party audits.