US stock futures declined on Monday amid mounting concerns over the safety of advanced artificial intelligence development, while investors shifted their focus to this week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting. On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said AI companies should slow the development of their most sophisticated models due to safety risks, and he pledged to introduce additional safeguards at his firm. Separately, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the ChatGPT maker does not plan to go public this year.
On the monetary policy front, markets are currently pricing in roughly an 86% chance of a Fed rate hike on Wednesday, as elevated energy prices continue to fuel inflationary pressures. Oil prices extended their gains on Monday after Saudi Arabia shut a key pipeline used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz following drone attacks. The latest rally in crude weighed on major US equity benchmarks last week, with the Dow losing 1.57%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.8% and 0.66%, respectively.