Image source, Reuters Image caption, There was no alternative to developing AI, Anthropic boss Dario Amodei said
The head of AI company Anthropic has called for the pace of development of artificial intelligence models to slow down and to be closely monitored.
In an essay, Dario Amodei said developing AI was not in question, but the risks associated with it were "serious" and companies and governments must be given time to address them.
The bosses of two rival AI firms, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk, have both said they agree with Amodei.
There have been growing concerns recently about the technology's potential risks. An AI researcher who left Anthropic this week told the BBC that "if we don't slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future".
Jacob Coxon told Laura Kuenssberg that people working at AI companies were "genuinely frightened... genuinely concerned about the fate of humanity in the next two years".
"It's not at all an exaggeration to say that the people who are involved with both founding these companies and building the tech believe there is a possibility of human extinction," Coxon said.
"Many of the people who are sort of deep in the weeds on actually coding the thing believe that there is like a greater than ten percent chance, or even greater. Some smaller, but they all have different numbers for a probability that humans might die. And they all keep this in their head on a daily basis while working on the technology."
Figure caption, 'There is a possibility of human extinction,' former Anthropic employee says about AI
In Amodei's essay, called We Must Pace the Frontier and made public on Saturday, he proposed a three-point plan that includes independent monitoring of AI models as they are developed, industry-wide regulation and global regulation.
As his proposal made the rounds, even competitors voiced support for the idea of third-party monitors who could evaluate the safety of models as they are developed.
"I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier," wrote OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X. He called independent evaluators "a great idea."
In a new interview with Fortune Magazine, Altman had sounded similar safety concerns, saying standards were "not at a place" to push AI capabilities much further.
He added that he believed AI beyond human control is "absolutely" possible.
Elon Musk meanwhile said the Anthropic boss was "right".
The warnings have prompted calls to action, but US President Donald Trump has so far rejected such fears, saying on Thursday he was concerned "if we don't win AI, we're going to be put in a very bad position".
Cyber-security concerns have grown as new models have exhibited more and more powerful hacking capabilities.
Anthropic withheld its Mythos model from public use when it was announced in April that it could independently escape the testing environment, known as the sandbox.
In the run-up to the release of its most recent Astra model, OpenAI cited cybersecurity concerns as it explained it had paused certain aspects of the model's development.
Safety has also taken centrestage in the rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI.
Amodei, who had previously worked as a vice president at OpenAI, has said he co-founded Anthropic in 2021 so he could build safer and more trusted AI models.
AI staff 'genuinely frightened' for humanity's future, ex-An…