Should frontier AI development slow down?

Amodei’s proposal

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argues that safety work needs time to catch up with accelerating capabilities. Citing the previously reported Hugging Face intrusion, he warns that a similarly misaligned swarm in six to twelve months could cause vastly greater damage. That is his forecast, not an observed outcome. Dario Amodei Dario Amodei 

Amodei commits Anthropic to ongoing external evaluation with access comparable to employees, including training. He proposes independent publication rights with limited confidentiality exceptions. The team is still to be invited. His wider plan seeks coordinated safety standards and international agreements, rather than an immediate halt to all training. Dario Amodei Dario Amodei 

Responses and proposed oversight

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman endorses the proposal and says OpenAI will also provide independent evaluators with employee-like access, with details to follow. Sam Altman OpenAI 

Elon Musk endorses Amodei by quote-posting his announcement with “Dario is right.” His post supplies no specific evaluator-access commitment or agreement to slow development. Elon Musk 

Demis Hassabis supports the direction of Amodei’s essay while saying its details need work. He points to his July proposal for a frontier-AI standards body under federal oversight, with independent assessments and a possible coordinated slowdown if needed. That proposal starts with voluntary pre-release review and considers mandatory assessments later; his September response does not announce employee-like evaluator access. Demis Hassabis Demis Hassabis 

Andrej Karpathy welcomes the embedded-evaluator proposal and hopes the industry can work together to put it into practice. Andrej Karpathy 

Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clement Delangue announces an Open Alignment Initiative led by Thomas Wolf and asks to join the evaluator program. His announcement does not establish acceptance or evaluator access. Clement Delangue Clement Delangue 

Nadella on pacing and broad representation

On September 13, Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella adds a position on superintelligence, human control and oversight. He supports deliberate pacing to get alignment right and welcomes embedded evaluators, while arguing that the process should represent the wider ecosystem, countries and academia rather than a handful of organizations. Nadella pairs that caution with a call to spread AI’s benefits through both open and closed models. He argues that companies should retain control of their knowledge, learning processes and model weights without depending on a single provider. The next day, Microsoft AI publishes a draft code of conduct for its MAI models for six weeks of public consultation. The document is not yet used to train its models; a revised version is intended to guide development in 2027 and beyond. His post expresses support for pacing and evaluation; it does not announce a specific evaluator-access agreement or a halt to development. Satya Nadella Microsoft AI 

Read Microsoft AI’s proposed code of conduct →

Sacks and Khosla challenge the case for coordinated pacing

On September 13, David Sacks responds to Amodei and Altman with “go ahead.” He supports the labs choosing to slow down if their unreleased models concern them, while acknowledging that he cannot see what they see inside their labs. He argues that they should act without making a preferred regulatory framework a condition of restraint. He opposes antitrust exemptions and an approval process that would supersede product liability, and disputes METR’s independence by alleging ties to Anthropic’s investors and staff. Those are his criticisms, not findings established by the post. Sacks also argues that liability exposure and customer demand for reliable models give the labs business reasons to slow down. He questions whether China would join a global agreement and accuses the labs of seeking regulatory advantage. His support for voluntary pacing differs from Trump’s rejection of additional guardrails. David Sacks 

Quote-posting Sacks on September 13, Vinod Khosla argues that avoiding a loss of ground to China is more important. He says he would not trust a Chinese agreement to slow down and views advanced AI controlled by China as the greater danger. The post expresses his geopolitical judgment; it supplies no evidence of a Chinese breach of an agreement. Vinod Khosla 

Altman on slower development and concentrated power

In a September 14 follow-up, Altman supports independent auditors and consistent federal safety requirements, but says labs can begin working together before legislation or an antitrust exemption. He says OpenAI now prepares explicit safety cases before frontier reinforcement-learning runs expected to significantly increase capability, extending safety work into model development. Altman distinguishes pacing from stopping: development should continue, but more slowly than it otherwise could because safety cases and monitoring carry significant costs. He calls for shared standards on misalignment, monitoring and safety, with government support for international coordination. Sam Altman 

In a quote-post of that statement, Altman identifies two dangers: losing control of the future to AI, and concentrating enough AI power for a person or company to impose its worldview on others. He also warns about excessive power in one country or lab, pairing the case for alignment with concern over who controls powerful AI. Sam Altman 

The administration’s response

President Donald Trump rejects additional AI safeguards and dismisses catastrophe warnings, while Vice President JD Vance questions industry requests for regulation. Their statements and the supporting factual context are covered in the related Trump response entry. Donald Trump Forbes / Conor Murray 

Read the Trump response and original posts →

China’s response: cooperation and opposition to containment

According to AP, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun responded to Amodei’s essay on September 14 by urging cooperation and saying confrontation would undermine global AI governance. Separately, a September 13 Global Times editorial portrayed the proposal as containment of China. These responses concern Amodei’s combination of international safety cooperation and restrictions on China’s access to advanced chips. Neither establishes Chinese agreement to a coordinated slowdown. Associated Press / GPB 

Obama calls for public involvement in AI’s future

In a September 14 post, Barack Obama welcomes what he describes as agreement among frontier-lab leaders on the need to slow AI development, calling it a necessary first step. He argues that decisions about the technology should become a central public debate and should involve society beyond the companies building it. He rejects both inevitable technological utopia and inevitable human destruction, saying that today’s choices will determine whether AI brings breakthroughs in medicine, energy and education or economic disruption, greater inequality and potential catastrophe. Barack Obama 

Dorsey argues for open development and independent scrutiny

In his September 14 essay “open the frontier,” Jack Dorsey supports independent evaluations but opposes industry-wide development limits negotiated by incumbent labs. He argues that such rules could exclude smaller competitors and independent researchers, and favors open alternatives that people can inspect, modify and run themselves. He welcomes evaluators with continuing access to labs and freedom to publish unfavorable findings, and calls for publicly funded computing resources under independent research groups’ control. Dorsey acknowledges that wider model access can enable dangerous work and that recursive self-improvement deserves serious preparation. He favors targeted defenses and stopping unsafe experiments before restricting publication. He would accept withholding a model when independently reviewable evidence shows added catastrophic risk that narrower measures cannot adequately address, with public reasons, review, appeal and reconsideration. He also rejects treating Chinese researchers as interchangeable with their government. His argument is for open development with accountable safeguards, rather than a claim that AI poses no serious danger. Jack Dorsey 

Zuckerberg argues labs can act individually

On September 15, Mark Zuckerberg argues that each lab can set a safe development pace without waiting for collective action. He says customer demand for trustworthy agents and liability for harm give companies incentives to improve alignment. These are his arguments about incentives, rather than evidence that market pressures alone ensure safety. Mark Zuckerberg 

Zuckerberg says Meta delayed Muse for several months to address safety and security without requiring other labs to do the same. He describes independent evaluation as established practice at Meta Superintelligence Labs and favors a larger, more diverse evaluator ecosystem. He also says Meta has committed most of its compute to serving people rather than racing toward recursive self-improvement, and urges other labs to make similar choices. Mark Zuckerberg 

Hoffman calls for a public-benefit bargain

On September 16, Reid Hoffman welcomes pacing, independent evaluation and coordinated safety requirements, but argues these agreements must also secure concrete benefits for ordinary people. He proposes linking AI infrastructure approval to public benefits and giving communities control over data-center terms. These are his proposed bargains, not adopted policies. Reid Hoffman 

Read Hoffman’s proposal for AI and public benefits →

Gurley calls for independent regulatory authority

In a post published September 16 UTC, Bill Gurley says he is generally skeptical of regulation because it is difficult to design and vulnerable to regulatory capture. If AI safety regulation proceeds, he argues that the regulator must be independent, accountable to the public and empowered to oversee companies. He says regulators, rather than the companies, should determine tests and procedures, and rejects friendly third-party oversight entangled in industry relationships. Bill Gurley 

Gurley invokes the Boeing 737 Max crashes and Fukushima as warnings about regulatory capture, characterizing it as the decisive failure in both cases. That is his comparison and causal interpretation; the post does not establish that any particular AI evaluator is captured. Bill Gurley