Anthropic CEO Calls for Slower AI Development to Strengthen Safety

The head of Anthropic is calling for a slowdown in the race to develop increasingly powerful artificial intelligence, saying safety measures need more time to keep pace with technological advances.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei outlined the proposal in a new essay, saying AI capabilities are advancing rapidly enough that researchers' ability to understand and control increasingly powerful systems could fall behind. 

Amodei stressed that his proposal does not call for stopping technical progress or halting AI development. Instead, he is advocating for what he describes as "pacing" AI development so companies have additional time to evaluate systems and strengthen safeguards.

His proposal includes independent third-party evaluators working inside frontier AI companies, cooperation among AI companies in democratic countries to establish common safety standards and limits, and eventually broader international coordination. 

The call comes days after former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced his resignation and warned that companies developing AI are moving too quickly toward self-improving systems. Other Anthropic researchers, including alignment-science lead Evan Hubinger, have also publicly expressed concerns about the possibility of extremely advanced AI posing severe risks to humanity. 

Amodei said the industry needs to focus on maintaining control over the direction of AI development rather than simply maximizing the speed of technological progress.

"The way to take the right paths is for the industry to work together," Amodei said.

The proposal has received support from other major AI executives. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who leads xAI, publicly said they agreed with Amodei's call for greater caution and cooperation. 

The debate comes as AI companies continue competing to develop more capable systems, while researchers, companies and policymakers weigh the potential benefits of the technology against concerns about cybersecurity, misuse and the ability to maintain human oversight.

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