Anthropic calls for pause on global AI development amid signs it could escape human control

"Without a global coordination mechanism, companies and governments will have to make difficult decisions about (artificial intelligence) safety while under competitive and geopolitical pressures," the Anthropic report said. Photo by Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images

Article content

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic suggested Thursday a global pause on building the most powerful AI systems as the latest models are beginning to show signs they could escape human control.

Article content

The San Francisco-based company, which makes the Claude family of AI models, said in a report that a worldwide slowdown in cutting-edge AI development would “likely be a good thing” — but warned that if only one company stopped, rivals would simply race ahead.

Article content

Article content

Article content

“We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology,” it said.

Article content

Article content

Getting a real pause to work would mean multiple major AI companies in multiple countries — most notably the U.S. and China — all agreeing to stop at the same time, under rules everyone could actually verify, Anthropic said.

Article content

“Without a global coordination mechanism, companies and governments will have to make difficult decisions about safety while under competitive and geopolitical pressures,” it said.

Article content

The company has faced pushback from others in the industry — and officials in the White House — who say its focus on worst-case scenarios overstates the risks and amounts to a strategy for slowing rivals under the cover of safety concerns.

Article content

Still, the White House has acknowledged the power of the company’s Mythos model — which has not been made available to the general public due to its cybersecurity capabilities and is currently deployed only to a small number of vetted organizations.

Article content

Article content

The proposal would face an uphill battle in Washington and Silicon Valley, where U.S. officials and tech executives have repeatedly argued that any slowdown in AI development risks handing China a decisive strategic edge in what many see as the defining technology race of the century.

Article content

Article content

U.S. President Donald Trump, however, said he discussed the possibility of cooperating with China on AI safety issues during his recent visit to Beijing.

Article content

Trump also signed an executive order this week that allows the government 30 days to conduct a preliminary review of the most powerful US AI models before their release.

Article content

Anthropic compared the problem to nuclear arms control treaties — but said it would be even harder to get a handle on, since AI training is far easier to hide than a missile silo, and the temptation to quietly keep going would be enormous.

Article content

The company said it plans to bring together government officials, scientists, advocacy groups and competing AI firms in coming months to figure out how such a system could work.

Article content

The call for coordination comes alongside internal data showing that AI is already dramatically speeding up the development of AI itself, Anthropic said.