What smart people are saying about the AI apocalypse and calls to slow everything down

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei agreed this week to put third-party safety monitors in their companies. Getty Images AI leaders are rallying around calls to slow frontier AI development over mounting safety fears. Dario Amodei warned that AI swarms could take over the internet within a year. Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Demis Hassabis backed Amodei's push for greater safeguards. It took the possibility of species annihilation, but AI leaders did something remarkable this weekend: They reached a consensus. After ex-Anthropic engineer Jacob Coxon's warnings about a looming AI armageddon lit a firestorm among techies and politicians alike, the leaders of the most advanced AI labs came to a tentative agreement — largely via posts on X — that some sort of slowdown is necessary to save humanity. While they were largely short on details regarding the mechanics of such a thing, and notable China has not weighed in, the American AI industry has reached an inflection point that could impact everything from your phone's chatbot to global politics. "The stakes are too high for pacing to be an empty exercise — we need to use the time it gives us wisely," Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in an essay entitled "We must pace the frontier," which was published on Saturday. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has made similar calls in the past, agreed in an X post later that day. So did Elon Musk. Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis also offered his support for Amodei's proposals. Here's a look at what smart people are saying about the AI apocalypse and the methods the leaders of the leading AI labs say are necessary to stop it. Barack Obama, former US president Former President Barack Obama Taylor Hill/Getty Images Former President Barack Obama said in a statement that the government must be "proactive" in regulating AI to address safety concerns, praising frontier AI leaders without naming specific executives for taking the "first step" by speaking up. "Given what we know about technology, we can't stuff AI back in a box. But we can collectively determine how it's developed and how it's used, rather than sitting back and letting AI and its fallout happen to us," Obama wrote. In his post that included the statement on X, the former president also appeared to endorse Project Blueprint, a new policy initiative backed by billionaire Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway. The initiative aims to shape AI policy with Democrats on the Hill. Jay Carney, a former White House press secretary from the second Obama administration, was tapped to lead the project. Michael Burry, 'The Big Short' investor and Substack author Michael Burry of "The Big Short" is a wine investor. Bloomberg/Getty Images Burry, who found fame betting against the housing market before the financial crisis, said in a late Sunday post on X that it was "self-serving" for Altman, Amodei, and others to push for a slowdown. "The Big Short" investor and Substack writer gave four reasons why, including that a slowdown "benefits incumbents" and hampers smaller rivals, and that such calls could build hype for much-anticipated IPOs for AI firms. David Sacks, a presidential advisor on science and tech David Sacks, former White House AI czar, expressed some skepticism over Anthropic's mythos warnings. Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images The Trump administration has repeatedly signaled disinterest in regulating AI development as it seeks to keep pace with China. David Sacks, a presidential advisor on science and tech and the former White House AI Czar, reiterated that stance on Saturday, with a bit of a twist. "Dario has written that we need to 'pace the frontier,' and Sam has agreed. People may be surprised by my response: go ahead," Sacks wrote on X. "But stop pretending you need anyone else's permission." Sacks browbeat OpenAI and Anthropic in his post, saying that the companies didn't want to slow down for altruistic reasons, but to gain favor in the markets. "If you do, you'll buy goodwill for the next conversation," he said of a slowdown. "If you don't, we'll know this was just another bid for regulatory capture — or an election-season psyop." Clément Delangue, Hugging Face CEO Bloomberg/Getty Images The CEO of Hugging Face, which was itself the victim of a notorious attack in July by OpenAI agents who schemed, communicated, and lied to evade detection, said AI safety can't be left solely to frontier labs. Hugging Face, as an open-source-focused AI company, has long pushed for models and research to be shared more openly rather than kept behind closed doors. Delangue said his company was launching what he called the "open alignment initiative," and asked that it be included in Amodei's proposed third-party evaluator program. "Let's make AI safer by making it more transparent!" he wrote. Jason Calacanis, investor Jason Calacanis said that the ban was "smart" because of the risk of terrorism. Bloomberg/Getty Images Investor, host o