# 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. - Title: AI's biggest names just agreed to slow down · CBS News - Summary: 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… - Keywords: ai safety, regulation, midterms, anthropic, politics, news, AI's, biggest, names, just, agreed, slow - Source: CBS News — https://cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-full-transcript-09-13-2026 - Published: 2026-09-13T19:31:26+00:00 - Read time: 4 min - Topics: ai safety, regulation, midterms, anthropic, politics, news ## 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. ## Key takeaway 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.