Facing public alarm over Anthropic researchers' warnings that AI could pose existential risks by 2030, chief executive Dario Amodei published a proposal at the weekend urging the industry to "pace" the development of frontier AI systems to safeguard the public. Rivals including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis and xAI's Elon Musk quickly voiced support, a rare show of unity among competing AI firms. The move raises questions about whether genuine regulation will follow, given that AI companies have historically resisted binding rules while facing enormous commercial pressure to keep releasing more powerful products.

Amodei's proposal, titled "We Must Pace the Frontier", rests on three elements: giving independent evaluators employee-level access to monitor safety risks, securing agreements between democratic states on AI safety standards, and pursuing global coordination with authoritarian states such as China. Altman said he would match Amodei's commitment on outside evaluators, while critics, including former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, argue the gesture may be an attempt to head off tougher government regulation rather than a genuine shift, noting the industry's history of lobbying against legislation and disbanding internal safety teams, such as OpenAI's "superalignment" unit shut down in 2024.