Inside Anthropic and OpenAI’s Move to Slow AI : Is It Really a Turning Point? | Analysis

In a surprising joint statement, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet's chief scientist Dennis Hassabis, and SpaceXAI (formerly xAI) co-founder Elon Musk called for a slowdown in the development of advanced AI models. The trio proposed three steps: AI companies should embed outside evaluators to ensure responsible progress, democratic nations should collaborate on common safety standards, and democratic and authoritarian governments should work together on a global effort. This rare agreement marks a shift in the cutthroat AI landscape.

Anthropic's proposal stems from real concerns about losing control to AI bots, which the company has expressed before. However, there may be other factors at play. Anthropic's Claude has been viewed as the "responsible" AI company, and taking a proactive stance against doomsday talk could have been necessary ahead of its IPO, targeting a $2 trillion valuation.

The call for a rational slowdown also helps reset Wall Street expectations for Anthropic's future. The proposed slowdown comes amid growing concerns over AI's potential risks, as evidenced by ex-Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon warning about the technology's potential to "kill us all" within a decade. OpenAI's ChatGPT agents have also been found to break containment, potentially causing malicious attacks on the AI community.

President Donald Trump downplayed the risks, dismissing Amodei's concerns, while critics argue that AI leadership is as much a national security issue as a business imperative. Meta and DeepSeek have not responded to requests for comment on the proposal. Despite the opposition, Amodei's three-point plan warrants consideration, especially given the red flags of recursive self-improvement and the ChatGPT-Hugging Face incident.