Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella backs ‘slowing down' the pace of AI development; calls for measured approach

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has called for a measured approach to AI development, stressing human control and broad access to the technology. His comments come as AI leaders warn about growing risks, while US President Donald Trump rejects calls to slow development.

Amid growing chatter around slowing down the development of artificial intelligence (AI) models following Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's lengthy post and a warning from former researcher Jacob Coxon, who said the technology "could kill us all", Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has joined the debate and called for a measured approach.

Satya Nadella calls for a measured approach to AI development

In a post on X on Sunday (local time), Nadella wrote, "Any pursuit of superintelligence has to be grounded in the core principle that if the AI we build is not helping humanity and under human control, it's not worth pursuing." He added, "We also need to accelerate and spread the benefits of AI, such that they are diffused broadly across countries, communities, and companies. This requires a frontier ecosystem in which both closed and open-source models can thrive."

The Microsoft CEO also noted that AI companies should have full control over their unique and tacit knowledge. He added, "Every organization should be able to build its own continuous learning loop/hill climbing machine, without becoming dependent on any one model provider, and have the ability to embed its own knowledge into models and weights they control."

Microsoft CEO welcomes research for AI development

Elaborating on the idea that companies should be able to build their own learning machines, Nadella noted that Microsoft welcomes the research, focus and deliberate pacing necessary to get alignment correct as the design goal. He added that the company also welcomes ideas such as "embedded evaluators" and broader efforts to develop mechanisms to make this more than just talk.

Swati Gandhi