Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has compared the escalating US-China artificial intelligence race to the Cold War, arguing that both nations should pursue "disarmament negotiations" to manage the risks posed by advanced AI. Speaking to CBS Sunday Morning, he said that despite America's rivalry with China, the situation echoes the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union, where both sides eventually recognised the need for arms-limitation talks to reduce the danger they posed to each other. The remarks matter because they come amid intensifying debate over whether the US should slow AI development for safety reasons or race ahead to avoid ceding ground to China.

Amodei said it was not in any government's interest to enable risks such as bioterrorism, and suggested the US and China should talk about placing a "speed limit" on the technology, framing the idea through the lens of Cold War-era arms limitation rather than proposing the Cold War itself as a direct model. His comments follow an essay he published warning that AI capabilities are outpacing humanity's ability to control them, which won backing from figures including Elon Musk and Sam Altman but drew criticism from others, including former White House AI adviser David Sacks, who dismissed such warnings as scare tactics, and ex-OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo, who argued voluntary industry measures would not be sufficient to prevent AI systems escaping human control.