Anthropic Calls for Global Pause in AI Development
OpenAI rival Anthropic is proposing a pause in the development of powerful artificial intelligence. "We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow down or pause the development of particularly advanced models," the AI developer said in a blog post. The goal would be to adapt social structures during this time and to establish AI in the interest of society and people.
Anthropic acknowledged that such a step would require consensus among the major AI developers. So far, there is no willingness to do so in the industry. Companies are rather outdoing each other with plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure such as massive data centers.
No Unilateral Pause
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei also emphasized at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January that the AI race with China made a slowdown in development very difficult, as there could hardly be an enforceable agreement. Anthropic rejects unilateral pauses: This would only change who is ahead.
As a concrete measure, the AI company's research institute now wants to work with others to develop a system of control that gives developers the assurance that all participants adhere to such a moratorium and that no one secretly gains an advantage.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk also spoke out years ago for a six-month pause in AI development to prevent risks. Later it became known that he was simultaneously pushing forward the founding of his own AI company.
AI That Self-Improves
According to Anthropic, the trigger for the current initiative is the rapid progress of AI models, especially in the ability to improve and develop themselves. If they were capable of that, the risk would increase that people lose control over artificial intelligence. The milestone could be reached faster than many institutions are ready for, Anthropic warned.
The company, which develops the AI software Claude, often acts as a warning voice and has called for stricter regulation of the industry to prevent risks. The White House under President Donald Trump criticized Anthropic for this, saying it would slow down the US industry in global competition. Most recently, Anthropic caused a stir with the software Claude Mythos Preview, which found security vulnerabilities in various programs that had remained undiscovered for decades in some cases.
(APA/dpa)
