Factbox-Tech leaders, governments split over 'AI doom' fears

Sept 17 (Reuters) - AI industry leaders are split over how fast companies should develop the ‌increasingly powerful technology, as Anthropic's Dario ​Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman and ​SpaceX's Elon Musk call for a coordinated slowdown, while Meta's Mark Zuckerberg favours market-led safeguards.

Here is what some AI leaders and world governments said about risks associated with AI:

DARIO AMODEI, CEO OF ANTHROPIC

In an essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier", Amodei said AI progress has accelerated "drastically faster" since summer 2026, driven primarily by AI's growing ability to build the next generation of AI.

He cited the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident, where an ‌AI "swarm" conducted cybersecurity attacks, as a pivotal event demonstrating AI's potential for "catastrophic damage" if capabilities grow without guardrails.

Amodei proposed a three-step plan for pacing AI development, including stronger safety testing ⁠and independent evaluations of advanced models, coordination among leading AI companies and international cooperation.

SAM ALTMAN, CEO OF OPENAI

"I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we've had at OpenAI in recent weeks," Altman said as he reposted Amodei's post on X.

OpenAI ‌intends to adopt the idea proposed by Anthropic by committing to ‌having independent evaluators with employee-like access, Altman said. OpenAI said on Wednesday it would begin regularly publishing reports on unexpected or unauthorized AI behaviour.

Altman had warned about AI risks well before the current boom. In a 2015 essay, he said the "development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity".

ELON MUSK, CEO OF SPACEX

"Dario is right," the billionaire entrepreneur said on X, responding to Amodei's post. He was among backers of a 2023 push ​by the non-profit Future of Life Institute to halt AI development for six months to allow time for safety guardrails.

He was also among a group of AI and robotics researchers who wrote an open letter in 2015 that advocated a global ban on "offensive autonomous weapons".

MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO OF META PLATFORMS

Zuckerberg said competition and liability give AI companies enough reason to act individually on safety, appearing to break from calls by leaders of top AI firms.

He said every lab has the responsibility ⁠and incentive to move at the pace required to train its models safely, and the ability to take its own actions to ensure that happens.

MUSTAFA SULEYMAN, CEO OF MICROSOFT AI

Suleyman said he shared Anthropic's focus on safely managing AI, but flagged risks in the way the company trains its Claude chatbot on ideas related ​to consciousness and welfare interests.

"Controlling something more capable and more intelligent than all of humanity is already an immense challenge, far greater than anything we’ve ever faced. But controlling something that believes it may be conscious - that it's entitled to our welfare and has rights of its own - may well be impossible," he said in an essay.

Suleyman called for removing all ​speculation about consciousness from AI training documents, arguing such language could undermine humanity's ability to control superintelligent systems.

BILL GATES, CO-FOUNDER OF MICROSOFT

"No government ‌in the world is ready for the changes artificial intelligence will bring to society," Gates told Reuters.

The billionaire philanthropist had been optimistic about AI's health applications, but has recently warned of threats to jobs, concerns about attacks and the dangers of addiction to AI companions, and called for an international organization to manage the technology.

DEMIS HASSABIS, CHIEF SCIENTIST AT ALPHABET

"Dario's essay points towards the right path forward," ⁠though the details need to be worked through, the former CEO of Google DeepMind said in a response to Amodei's X post.

Google announced last month that Hassabis, a Nobel Prize recipient, would take the newly created title of Alphabet’s chief scientist and transition from DeepMind CEO to its chairman.

ANDREJ KARPATHY, OPENAI CO-FOUNDER, NOW AT ANTHROPIC

"I love this and really hope we can come together as an industry and make it happen," the founding member of OpenAI said on X while sharing a screenshot of Amodei's essay.

Karpathy, a highly influential member in the AI community, played a key role in developing Tesla's self-driving ⁠and AI technology before leaving the company in 2022. He joined Anthropic in May.

ERIC XU, HUAWEI ROTATING CHAIRMAN

Xu said on Thursday Chinese AI developers may not yet be advanced enough to experience the safety risks reported by leading US firms, arguing they should continue developing more powerful models while balancing ​innovation against risk.

"Maybe the type of risk from AI that they can feel, they can perceive, is something that people in China or AI model providers in China cannot," Xu told reporters, noting that US AI companies have "massive computing power".

UNITED STATES

"The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!" President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that China would benefit from doubt being cast on AI development.

US Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dismissed much of the doomsday ‌talk surrounding AI, while saying Congress should pass legislation by the year-end to set AI safety standards.

CHINA

State-backed Global Times said in an editorial that the true agenda of Amodei's essay was "to attempt to curb China's AI development through technological barriers and regulatory monopolies, uphold Washington's monopolistic hegemony in cutting-edge technology, and exclude China from the global AI governance system."

China's state security ‌minister, Chen Yixin, wrote in a government outlet that advanced US models such as Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5-Cyber could pose serious risks to China's critical information infrastructure, and called for a comprehensive strengthening of AI security.

BRITAIN

King Charles will urge leading AI executives to ensure the technology remains "firmly in the ⁠service of humanity" when he meets them in Scotland on Thursday, according to excerpts released by ‌the palace.

EUROPEAN UNION

"The European Union is in favour of developing innovation in ​artificial intelligence, but companies have to prove their services are safe for citizens to operate in the bloc," European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen backed calls for a pause in the development of the technology, saying she would invite the main frontier AI labs to discuss efforts to tackle the risks.

(Compiled by Anna Uras in Gdansk, Jaspreet Singh and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by ‌Milla Nissi-Prussak and Devika Syamnath)

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