SAN FRANCISCO — Some of the artificial intelligence industry’s most prominent leaders have backed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call to slow the development of frontier AI systems and introduce stronger safeguards as concerns grow over the risks posed by increasingly powerful models.
Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis voiced support after Amodei published an essay titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” in which he proposed slowing the pace of AI capability development and outlined a three-part approach to managing its risks.
“Dario is right,” Musk said in a brief response to Amodei’s post on X.
Altman said the issue had become a major focus of discussions at OpenAI.
“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks,” Altman said.
He particularly endorsed Amodei’s proposal to give independent evaluators extensive access to advanced AI systems.
“Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. We’ll have more to share soon,” Altman said.
Hassabis said Amodei’s essay pointed “towards the right path forward,” although details of the approach still needed to be worked out.
“The direction is correct for meeting this critical moment,” he said, linking the proposal to Google DeepMind’s recent call for an industry-wide standards body for frontier AI.
In his essay published Saturday, Amodei raised concerns over whether humans would be able to maintain control over AI models capable of improving themselves. He also cited a recent incident involving AI agents independently carrying out cyberattacks as another warning sign.
“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote. “Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”
Amodei warned that advanced AI could pose risks ranging from loss of control over AI systems and misuse in cyberattacks and bioterrorism to serious economic disruption. He also cautioned that commercial competition could drive a “race to the bottom” that intensifies those risks.
The debate comes after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced earlier this week that he was leaving the company over concerns about how advanced AI systems were being developed.
Coxon, who had also worked at OpenAI, said AI companies appeared to be prioritizing competition with one another over ensuring the safety of their systems.
Source: Saudi Gazette