Anthropic boss Dario Amodei calls for AI development to slow down

The head of AI company Anthropic has called for the pace of development of artificial intelligence models to slow down and to be closely monitored.

Dario Amodei wrote in an online essay that developing AI was not in question, but that the risks associated with it were "serious" and that companies and governments must be given time to address them.

The bosses of two rival AI firms, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk, have both said they agree with Amodei.

There have been growing concerns recently about the technology's potential risks. An AI researcher who left Anthropic told the BBC that "if we don't slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future".

Jacob Coxon told Laura Kuenssberg that people working at AI companies were "genuinely frightened... genuinely concerned about the fate of humanity in the next two years".

"It's not at all an exaggeration to say that the people who are involved with both founding these companies and building the tech believe there is a possibility of human extinction," Coxon said.

In Amodei's essay, called We Must Pace the Frontier and published on Saturday, he proposed a three-point plan that included independent monitoring of AI models as they are developed, industry-wide regulation and global regulation.

As his proposal made the rounds, even competitors voiced support for the idea of third-party monitors who could evaluate the safety of models as they are developed.

"I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier," wrote OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X. He called independent evaluators "a great idea".

Altman sounded similar safety concerns in a new interview, telling Fortune magazine that standards were "not at a place" to push AI capabilities much further.

He added that he believed AI beyond human control was "absolutely" possible.

Musk, meanwhile, who founded Grok producer xAI, said the Anthropic boss was "right".

Amodei's post has prompted a wide range of responses.