Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, have publicly called for slowing down AI development due to concerns about researchers' ability to understand and control increasingly powerful AI systems. Amodei’s nearly 4,000-word essay cites the autonomous hacking incident involving an OpenAI model as a critical turning point. Both CEOs advocate for deliberate pacing of AI advancements to ensure safety measures can keep up with technological progress.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-13,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Why this leaning score
The model judged this article politically coded and scored it -0.45, but all 3 of its quote(s) are attributed speech - words the article quotes from someone, not the article's own narration, so the score is not published.
Written under an earlier scoring contract, which gave a paragraph
rather than checkable quotes. Re-analysing this article replaces it.
Leaning score withheld for article 8443: attributed speech only · logged 2026-09-13
The CEOs of two of the world’s leading AI companies are publicly agreeing that the race to build increasingly powerful AI systems needs to be slowed, continuing this week’s cascade of warnings from researchers working on the technology.
asserted
race → lead → technology
Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, said in essay published Saturday that AI companies should deliberately “slow the pace” at which they improve their models, arguing that AI advances are moving faster than researchers’ ability to understand and control them.
“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote.
asserted
Amodei → say → models
“Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”
asserted
we → seem → time
Hours later, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman endorsed the idea and said his company would adopt one of Amodei’s proposed safeguards.
asserted
company → endorse → safeguards
“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman wrote on X, saying the issue had been a major topic of discussion at OpenAI in recent weeks.
asserted
issue → agree → weeks
Altman has previously called for slowing AI development.
asserted
Altman → call → development
In an Aug. 18 post on X, he said OpenAI had paused some advanced AI training to ensure it could meet its standards as capabilities improved.
uncertain
capabilities → say → standards
Amodei’s call, laid out in a nearly 4,000-word essay, comes after researchers at Anthropic, OpenAI and Google publicly raised concerns about the pace of AI development and the competitive pressures that comes with it.
asserted
that → lay → it
Amodei pointed to two developments that he said had changed his thinking: the increasing ability of AI systems to build more advanced AI, and a July incident in which autonomous AI agents powered by an OpenAI model hacked systems belonging to the AI company Hugging Face.
asserted
agents → point → company
“It’s easy to dismiss this incident because no one was hurt and the economic damage was minimal, but in my opinion, a swarm that possessed greater capabilities but a similar level of misalignment could have caused catastrophic damage,” he wrote.
uncertain
he → ’ → damage
Jacob Coxon, an Anthropic safety researcher who resigned this week, told colleagues in a message obtained by NBC News that he believed the industry’s approach to developing superintelligent AI amounted to a “gamble with our lives.”
“From within, you’re just stuck in the race,” Coxon later told NBC News, describing the competitive pressures on AI companies.
asserted
Coxon → resign → companies
“You can’t change the overall structural dynamics of the situation.”
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You → change → situation
“Private companies in a race don’t allow these people to end up doing good, and we could just sleepwalk into disaster,” he said.
uncertain
he → allow → disaster
Two other researchers who recently left Anthropic and Google DeepMind told NBC News they had similar concerns.
asserted
they → leave → concerns
Joe Benton, who used to lead a safety research team at Anthropic, warned that advances in AI could push development from its already “blistering” pace to an “uncontrollable” one.
uncertain
advances → use → one
Josh Engels, a former Google safety researcher, offered an even starker warning.
asserted
Engels → offer → warning
“There are no adults in the room,” Engels said.
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Engels → be → room
“People are trying their best, but there is no one coming to save us.”
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People → try → us
Amodei is proposing what he calls “pacing the frontier,” a three-part plan that he said would buy researchers more time without halting AI development.
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he → propose → development
He said Anthropic would begin embedding independent evaluators inside the company, giving them access to models, internal tools and researchers to assess risks.
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Anthropic → say → risks
Amodei called for similar oversight across leading U.S. AI companies, backed by federal regulation and eventually for international coordination.
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Amodei → call → coordination
The goal is not to stop AI progress, Amodei wrote, but to give researchers time to develop safeguards, better understand how increasingly capable systems work and test whether they can be reliable controlled.
asserted
they → stop → safeguards
He estimated that slowing development could buy researchers one or two more years, time he argued could prove critical as AI systems become increasingly capable of contributing to their own development.
uncertain
systems → estimate → development
“The stakes are too high for pacing to be an empty exercise — we need to use the time it gives us wisely,” he wrote.
asserted
he → need → us
