Home · Technology · Sep 20 archive
Is the AI industry really ready to slow down?
Confirmed
In Short: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and other top executives are urging the industry to slow down AI advancements.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly called for slowing the advance of frontier AI capabilities, a shift from the industry's previous focus on safety to a more uncomfortable question: should development be deliberately slowed until safety catches up?
Industry leaders, including those from Anthropic and OpenAI, are now focusing on workforce readiness and regulatory clarity. OpenAI has asked Congress for guidance on whether an industry-wide slowdown would be legal.
Executives like Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are discussing whether they are serious about slowing down AI development. OpenAI’s chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, argued that coordinating to slow down future development is key to ensuring safe AI systems.
Despite calls for slowing down, some industry leaders are skeptical. Michael Burry, known for his prescient bets before the 2008 financial crisis, dismissed the warnings as 'hype and puffery.' Morgan Stanley's Brian Nowak forecasted AI spending will surpass $1.2 trillion by 2027, suggesting development is unlikely to slow.
The debate over AI safety and potential slowdowns is gaining traction. On TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, industry leaders discussed the lack of specifics in Amodei’s plan and the need for more details on the risks and what slowing down entails.
Amid these discussions, AI-linked stocks across the globe plunged on Monday, reflecting the stark threat to the billions of dollars being poured into the industry. Futures tracking Wall Street's Nasdaq e-mini futures fell 1.9%, with chip stocks leading the decline.
The growing divide over calls for slowing AI development is evident. While some argue for a coordinated slowdown, others like Demis Hassabis, Alphabet Chief Scientist and Google DeepMind cofounder, support the idea of an industry-wide standards body.
Considering the influence of frontier AI companies, the question remains whether there is a 'kill switch' for AI. The industry's biggest names are now grappling with the balance between innovation and safety.
What's confirmed
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly called for slowing the advance of frontier AI capabilities, a shift from the industry's previous focus on safety to a more uncomfortable question: should development be deliberately slowed until safety catches up?
- Industry leaders, including those from Anthropic and OpenAI, are now focusing on workforce readiness and regulatory clarity. OpenAI has asked Congress for guidance on whether an industry-wide slowdown would be legal.
- Executives like Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are discussing whether they are serious about slowing down AI development. OpenAI’s chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, argued that coordinating to slow down future development is key to ensuring safe AI systems.
- Despite calls for slowing down, some industry leaders are skeptical. Michael Burry, known for his prescient bets before the 2008 financial crisis, dismissed the warnings as 'hype and puffery.' Morgan Stanley's Brian Nowak forecasted AI spending will surpass $1.2 trillion by 2027, suggesting development is unlikely to slow.
- The debate over AI safety and potential slowdowns is gaining traction. On TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, industry leaders discussed the lack of specifics in Amodei’s plan and the need for more details on the risks and what slowing down entails.
- Amid these discussions, AI-linked stocks across the globe plunged on Monday, reflecting the stark threat to the billions of dollars being poured into the industry. Futures tracking Wall Street's Nasdaq e-mini futures fell 1.9%, with chip stocks leading the decline.
- The growing divide over calls for slowing AI development is evident. While some argue for a coordinated slowdown, others like Demis Hassabis, Alphabet Chief Scientist and Google DeepMind cofounder, support the idea of an industry-wide standards body.
- Considering the influence of frontier AI companies, the question remains whether there is a 'kill switch' for AI. The industry's biggest names are now grappling with the balance between innovation and safety.
What's still developing
- Collectively, and coming from executives whose companies are competing intensely to build the most powerful AI systems, they represent a striking shift in the industry's safety debate.
- For years, leaders in the artificial intelligence industry have warned that increasingly capable AI systems could eventually become dangerous, all the while continuing to race to build them.
- Industry leaders project that agentic commerce technology will be ready this year: Visa previously stated that “2025 will be the final year consumers shop and checkout alone.” Yet companies still operate in a state of regulatory uncertainty, and existing laws could slow agentic commerce.
- Disrupt 2026: OpenAI, Anthropic, Replit, and more take over 6 industry stages. 25% off tickets now Back by popular demand: Save up to $300 on Disrupt We’re seeing a big debate over AI safety and a potential slowdown, as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently published a plan to “pace the frontier,” while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has publicly echoed President Donald Trump’s claims that the AI backlash is a hoax and regulation is unnecessary.
- I will say, I don’t think I was completely wrong, because even with these loose plans that Dario laid out in a blog post and and some of the other leaders have talked about, I feel like we’re still missing a lot of specifics here, not only on some of the claims about why these people think there are dangers and risks, but also specifics on what they mean by slowing down.
- What really stood out to me is the fact that so many people in the industry seemed to coalesce around this fairly quickly.
- “First step is for industry leaders OpenAI and Anthropic to stop feuding and work on a pacing proposal together,” John Schulman, an OpenAI cofounder who is now chief scientist at the rival AI lab Thinking Machines, wrote in a post on X earlier this week.
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, in a lengthy essay shared on X on Saturday, called on AI companies to slow the rate at which they advance model capabilities amid mounting fears of misuse of artificial intelligence.
- "If the AI race slows materially, the key question becomes: who pays for all that infrastructure. The leases, debt and power commitments remain even if expected compute demand and revenue growth slow. And that could bring credit risk increasingly into the AI story," said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote.
- And while several U.S. lawmakers have raised concern about AI's rapid progress and called for new rules, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday likened AI critics to "very negative forces" bringing up scenarios that will not happen, and said he wanted to make sure that the U.S. remains the industry leader.
- Michael Burry, whose prescient bets against the U.S. housing market before the 2008 financial crisis were chronicled in the movie "The Big Short", said in a message on X the warnings were "hype and puffery" and "cover for real uncontrollable slowing growth".
- Earlier this week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote a lengthy essay about the dire need to slow down the progress of frontier artificial intelligence (AI).