Dario Amodei, CEO of US-based Anthropic, has proposed slowing the pace of AI development, with Sam Altman and Elon Musk also voicing their support. This article examines the background, the difficulty of implementing a slowdown, and the debate over international regulation.
I attended the world's first AI Safety Summit, held at Bletchley Park in the UK in 2023. At the time, the focus was on potentially serious threats posed by the most powerful AI models. Several years on, questions are growing among the same people about the feasibility and implications of slowing AI development.
Amodei called for the pace of AI development to be restrained and proposed a plan built on three pillars: independent oversight, industry-wide regulation, and international regulation. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Elon Musk expressed their support.
Some argue that there needs to be transparency about how a slowdown would work, who would oversee it, and what companies are and are not doing. Ed Zitron, CEO of EZ Primary Research, said that substantive explanations were lacking.
In the broader global context, including the UK's AI adoption plans and the state of funding flows in the AI industry, discussions are focusing on the possibility of an AI bubble bursting and the long-term impact of regulation. Some views hold that stock-market listings could be suspended, while developments in individual countries and companies' responses will continue to be closely watched.