Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei issued a proposal to slow down the advancement of artificial intelligence after multiple warnings that the technology could lead to the end of humanity. Almost immediately after, the heads of some of the largest AI companies in the US agreed, in order to ensure the safety of the public.
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic recently had a team of expert researchers sound the alarm on the threat that AI can become in the very near future. In fact, the researchers stated that AI could very well kill all of humanity by 2030 based on the accelerated rate in which the technology has advanced in recent years.
In response, Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei issued a proposal in which he not only agreed, but emphasized how leaders within the AI field should all work together to slow down the technology’s advancement to best protect the public.
After Amodei’s proposal was published, the heads of the largest US AI companies all agreed. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis, and xAI owner Elon Musk all posted their own individual support for the proposal.
“We Must Pace the Frontier” is the title of Amodei’s essay. Altman specifically said that he would be matching Amodei’s commitment to embedding outside evaluators within OpenAI to verify safety practices, according to reports.
“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same,” Altman posted online.
Hassabis said: “Dario essay points towards the right path forward.”
Musk very plainly wrote online: “Dario is right.”
Rahm Emanuel, former congressman and chief of staff to Barack Obama, posted in awe of how much the CEOs were all on the same page, and called out our current administration for not consistently regulating AI as it continued to advance.
“I can tell you the last time a CEO or an industry at large asked to be regulated: never. That’s what makes Dario’s letter so striking – it’s an admission that we’re driving down a dark, winding road on wet pavement with the headlights off. And where’s President Trump? Looks like he nodded off again.”
The question now is how exactly will these CEOs take action when it comes to regulating this new technology. Throughout the past few years, all of these various billion-dollar companies have been competing with one another to do the opposite and advance their own AI models.
From a political standpoint, the US federal government has been consistently committed to advancing AI as quickly as possible to beat out other nations around the world. AI startups of all sizes have been facing major pressure to release new and powerful products.
Amodei’s essay laid out three main pillars. The first was a commitment from CEOs to give employee-level access to evaluators from outside of their companies to monitor risk without bias. The second lays out agreements between democratic states on AI safety standards. The third proposes that authoritarian governments from all over the world commit to a global coordination on security issues.
Even before the industry warnings over the risks of AI becoming too powerful and becoming autonomous, Amodei and other major figures in the industry have put out a call to action for global coordination.
Many AI firms have gone back-and-forth about how much they emphasize on communicating the potential harm from their products. For example, in 2024 OpenAI shut down a “superalignment” team dedicated to studying long term AI risks, and also disbanded another team intended to communicate how OpenAI would benefit humanity, the Guardian reports.
AI companies have also continuously made major claims over both the threats and benefits from their technology, while also providing little transparency into how their models actually operate, spending millions of dollars in lobbying efforts to shape favorable legislation.
The overarching argument against AI is the fact that the technology itself is too powerful, complex, and lucrative to properly regulate, creating products that will be able to govern itself. The fact that in a few short years it has advanced so exponentially means that in the next couple of years, it could become something unfathomable.
Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, posted this week that the initial need and desire from companies to become the most advanced and successful in the field is what led us to the point we’re at now with the technology.
“AI exceptionalism has led to a total failure to uphold our standards for what products are deemed safe for use.”
Critics also believe that Amodei’s proposal is just another example of the industry trying to set its own rules instead of listening to more intense government regulations.
Alex Bores, a supporter of AI regulation, warned that the AI lobby often seeks to undermine legislation while claiming to support regulation.
“To everyone who genuinely wants real AI regulation, please don’t fall for their games,” Bores posted.
Alvaro Bedoya, former head of the Federal Trade Commission under Biden, said that proposal works to attempt a regulatory capture, which could benefit current industry leaders.
“Antitrust law does not prevent AI companies from coordinating to make sure AI does not hurt people,” Bedoya posted.
“Antitrust law does absolutely prevent AI companies from organizing to prevent the entry of cheaper, upstart rivals because the bigger companies are burning cash and failing to achieve sufficient profitability.”
The US government, however, is actively working against what the proposal is suggesting, specifically the call for international coordination. President Donald Trump has consistently made it clear that he wants to turn the US into the dominant AI superpower, regardless of the safety risks.
In fact, this past week, Trump rejected calls to slow down AI development over competition with China: “whoever wins AI, wins.”
“We could put guardrails. We can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” Trump told reporters.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
