Sam Altman Backs Dario Amodei’s Call for Slowdown
Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, supports Dario Amodei’s proposal to slow down the pace of AI development. In response to Amodei’s call for safety discussions between AI rivals and a narrow antitrust waiver from Washington, Altman states that OpenAI will match Anthropic’s commitment to provide independent evaluators with employee-like access.
Amodei advocates for allowing external teams to review safety work directly within AI companies’ offices. He proposes a three-step plan:
- Safety discussions between competitors without legal repercussions.
- Companies publicly agreeing on a common safety commitment.
- Independent evaluators granted access and the right to publish their findings.
Anthropic has already implemented a similar approach, and OpenAI will follow suit. Elon Musk, founder of xAI, also expresses agreement with Amodei’s sentiments.
In Europe, individual exemptions for such discussions were abolished in 2004, and while there is a precedent for horizontal cooperation guidelines, they do not specifically address safety standards. The European Commission has expressed support for global regulations on AI safety.