AI: Should We Slow AI Innovation Down?

Last week, a researcher at the artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced his resignation on X, formerly known as Twitter.  Jacob Coxon wrote that his former company — along with Open AI, where he also recently worked — are acting irresponsibly and “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”That post went viral — it’s now been viewed nearly 200 million times. Then, on Saturday, Anthropic’s own CEO, Dario Amodei, published an essay calling on the entire industry to deliberately slow down. He also shared some ideas about how to do it. The head of Open AI, Sam Altman, replied by saying, “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.”Should we slow down AI innovation — and is that even possible? What’s at risk if we don’t?Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy