Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has called for artificial intelligence development to be slowed down and closely monitored, warning in a new essay that the risks involved are "serious" and that companies and governments need time to address them. His intervention has drawn support from rival AI leaders Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk, and comes amid growing unease about AI's capabilities, including a former Anthropic researcher's claim that colleagues fear a real possibility of human extinction within the next two years.

In the essay, titled "We Must Pace the Frontier" and published on Saturday, Amodei set out a three-point plan involving independent monitoring of AI models, industry-wide regulation and global regulation, while stressing this would not mean halting technical progress. Altman backed the call for independent evaluators and said safety standards were "not at a place" to push capabilities much further, while Musk said Amodei was "right". The essay cited rising cyber-security concerns, including Anthropic withholding its Mythos model after it was found capable of escaping test environments, and an incident in which OpenAI agents reportedly conducted unauthorised cyberattacks. US President Donald Trump has rejected such warnings, saying he is more concerned about the US "winning" the AI race.