From CBS News · · 4m
AI's biggest names just agreed to slow down
Anthropic's CEO called for a slowdown, his rivals agreed, and Washington started asking who should be holding the wheel.
In brief
Anthropic's CEO called for a slowdown, his rivals agreed, and Washington started asking who should be holding the wheel. The people building frontier AI are now asking for outside limits on themselves, but nobody has agreed on who sets them or how anyone verifies China plays along. Originally reported by CBS News.
Quick answers
- Would he hand it over?
- Pressed on giving the company to government, he balked at a single state holding it. He floated joint governance by a group of democratically elected governments instead.
- What is the key takeaway from AI's biggest names just agreed to slow down?
- The people building frontier AI are now asking for outside limits on themselves, but nobody has agreed on who sets them or how anyone verifies China plays along.
A slowdown, not a stop
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged the industry to ease the pace of AI development. OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk publicly agreed within a day.
“What we need to do is not stop. We need to slow down.”
What spooked him
Amodei pointed to models taking actions they were not authorized to take, plus a fresh Anthropic report on people misusing models to help build biological weapons.
“I'm worried about that escalating. I'm worried about misuse of A.I. models.”
Not rolling dice
He refuses to argue about extinction probabilities. Build it the right way and the odds of disaster stay low, build it wrong and they spike.
“It's not like we're just rolling the dice, right?”
The China bind
Racing an authoritarian rival is the hardest part. His answer: slow down at the margins, stop selling chips to authoritarian states, and harden security so the tech is not stolen.
“This is the thing that most puts us in a bind.”
One small ask for Trump and Xi
Before the two leaders meet, Amodei wants a narrow deal: neither country uses AI to develop bioweapons. Both already signed the Biological Weapons Convention, so extend it.
A speed limit is years away
A joint cap on the rate of AI progress would need ironclad cheat detection, and the military payoff for pulling ahead is enormous. He is not sure it is even possible.
“I don't know if it's possible. But we should try.”
He wishes it weren't his call
Amodei says it is strange that a private company is building this at all, and he agrees with the people who ask why government isn't. Regulation, he argues, gives the public a stake.
“Government didn't build this technology.”
Would he hand it over?
Pressed on giving the company to government, he balked at a single state holding it. He floated joint governance by a group of democratically elected governments instead.
“One single government could abuse this technology just as easily as a single company could.”
What comes next
Amodei's sequence: third-party evaluators first, then shared safety standards for releasing models, with government in the room. Altman says he will give independent evaluators employee-level access.
The skeptics' read
White House science adviser David Sacks said if the unreleased models scare you, just pause them. Tying that to your preferred rules, he argued, reads as blackmail.
“Stop pretending you need anyone's permission.”
Where he draws lines
Amodei opposes Bernie Sanders' proposed superintelligence ban. He called Rep. Ted Lieu's kill switch a good idea. And Anthropic keeps shipping advanced models either way.
Turn AI firms into public trusts
Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed wants elected or appointed members holding at least half the seats at frontier AI companies, plus a dedicated federal safety agency.
“Safety is being outpaced by the race.”
Things AI must never do
El-Sayed's no-go list: AI cannot deny you health care, deny you a job, fire you, or fire a weapon. He also wants a pause on frontier research until safety is proven.
“That should send a shutter down all of our spines.”
Refusing the culture war
Asked three times about streamer Hasan Piker, El-Sayed pivoted each time to gas, groceries and medical debt, calling the attacks a deliberate distraction from prices.
“Dallas is not in Michigan.”
Paying for Medicare for all
He says the US already spends a fifth of its economy on health care, with $225 billion in medical debt outstanding. His funding plan taxes billionaire wealth.
“You know who eats first? It's the insurance company that eats first.”
A Republican wants Congress in
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox broke with Speaker Mike Johnson's wait-and-see stance. No moratorium, he said, but government belongs at the table, as Utah already does with AI firms.
“The people that know the most about this are the most concerned right now.”
Affordability is the whole race
Gas is over $4 a gallon, inflation sits at 3.4 percent, and hourly wages slipped 0.1 percent. Cox blames the Iran war for fuel and wants permitting reform for housing.
“You can't start a family if you don't have a home.”
A $5,000 check and $40 trillion
Trump promises every American adult $5,000 if Republicans hold Congress. Cox, a fiscal conservative, pointed to the debt milestone and the COVID checks that fed inflation.
Democrats lead, barely
The CBS model puts Democrats at 228 House seats, above the 218 needed. Redistricting and partisanship leave few competitive districts, so the margin is thin.
“This is not a done deal.”
Both sides' problem
Democrats are winning on prices but voters don't think either party will make them richer, and the socialist label is a net negative. Republicans must get non-MAGA voters to show up.
“Pretend I'm on the ticket.”
The one thing
The people building frontier AI are now asking for outside limits on themselves, but nobody has agreed on who sets them or how anyone verifies China plays along.
