Anthropic CEO calls for slower AI development; OpenAI's Altman and Elon Musk agree
Three AI leaders back a slower pace
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for a deliberate slowdown in frontier AI development — the most capable, cutting-edge AI models — and rival leaders Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI have backed the idea.
According to CoinDesk, Amodei argued that AI model capabilities are improving faster than researchers can understand or control them. He did not call for a complete stop, saying that not building the technology would deprive humanity of benefits or leave AI in the hands of authoritarian powers, while building it too fast is reckless.
Key facts at a glance
- Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, called for deliberately pacing frontier AI development.
- He cited safety concerns, saying capabilities are moving faster than AI safety work.
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk both publicly backed his proposal.
- Amodei proposed independent evaluators and shared safety standards, not a total halt.
What the essay says
In an essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier," Amodei wrote: "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models." He said advances since this summer convinced him that AI safety work was no longer keeping pace with quickly improving capabilities.
His proposals include independent evaluators inside leading AI labs, common safety standards among democratic countries, and eventual international limits on dangerous capabilities such as recursive self-improvement — a process in which AI systems help build more capable versions of themselves.
What Altman and Musk said
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said: "I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier," to give society time to adapt to increasingly powerful systems, according to CoinDesk. Elon Musk, whose firm xAI developed Grok, publicly backed Amodei's proposal, responding: "Dario is right."
Warning from a former researcher
The warning comes as researchers inside the companies grow increasingly concerned about a critical threshold: AI systems beginning to automate the work required to develop more capable AI systems. Jacob Coxon, a researcher who worked at both Anthropic and OpenAI, resigned from Anthropic this month and warned about the race toward self-improving super-intelligence, CoinDesk reported.
What the report backs
The CoinDesk report states that Amodei published the essay, that he called for a slower pace, and that Altman and Musk endorsed his position. The proposed safety measures are Amodei's proposals, not confirmed policies.
Why these endorsements matter
According to the report, the endorsements signal growing support among rival industry leaders for coordinated safety measures without halting development. Three of the AI industry's most prominent and competitive leaders now support versions of the same idea: frontier AI should keep advancing, but not necessarily as fast as technically possible.
