AI leaders want to hit the brakes after years of reckless speed
Safety is the watchword, but there could be ulterior benefits for the industry.
For years, the leading AI labs have been racing to achieve world-changing machine superintelligence, or artificial general intelligence, as the ultimate goal. However, this weekend, the industry suddenly shifted its stance, urging for a slowdown in the development of frontier AI. Dario Amodei, from Anthropic, led this change in tone through a 4,000-word essay, urging a slower pace to avoid a "race to the bottom" driven by commercial incentives that could intensify catastrophic risks.
Almost immediately, other AI leaders echoed this call. Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, agreed on social media, mentioning similar pacing discussions at OpenAI. Demis Hassabis, Alphabet's Chief Scientist and Google DeepMind's cofounder and chair, praised Amodei's essay, stating it pointed to the right path forward. He also reiterated his call for an industry-wide standards body.
Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, welcomed the research and the emphasis on deliberate pacing to ensure proper alignment. He emphasized that the design goal should be achieving alignment, ahead of releasing a comprehensive "humanist AI" code of conduct for its models.
Written by urgent.news from Ars Technica's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
