Technology 5 min read By Bethany Hadley
AI safety warnings go mainstream as Trump resists calls for slowdown
A wave of resignations and dire warnings from AI safety researchers has pushed existential risk into the mainstream, prompting new legislative proposals in the US and an open letter from 70 UK parliamentarians. But the Trump administration is resisting calls for a coordinated slowdown in frontier AI development.
Concern about the existential risks of artificial intelligence has broken into the mainstream, triggering a wave of regulatory proposals and calls for a coordinated slowdown in frontier AI development. The shift follows a week of dire warnings from employees resigning from or still working at leading AI companies, who claim the technology is being developed recklessly and poses a risk to human extinction.
In response, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a blog post calling for a coordinated slowdown or pause among frontier labs in democratic countries. He said that coordinating with other AI labs would in some cases require an antitrust exemption from the government. Amodei also committed to appointing independent evaluators to be permanently on-site at Anthropic's offices to review its safety work, naming the nonprofit AI evaluation company METR as his preferred partner.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly endorsed most of Amodei's proposals, saying OpenAI would also embed outside evaluators alongside its research teams. In an interview, Altman said the company favoured coordinating an industry-wide slowdown with bitter rivals including Anthropic, SpaceX, Google DeepMind and Meta. He hinted such discussions were already underway and that an announcement could come soon. Altman also said he would have no problem telling investors that OpenAI had taken safety actions that cost them financially, and confirmed the company would not go public this year, partly due to safety concerns about the latest models.
The political response has been swift. US lawmakers have introduced legislation or renewed efforts to push forward existing bills. Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed an outright ban on the development of «artificial superintelligence» and a pause on current research until safety techniques improve. A bipartisan bill from Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar would impose a duty on AI companies to prevent catastrophic harms. There have also been calls for Congressional oversight hearings on AI's catastrophic risks, and former President Barack Obama urged Democrats to put AI governance at the centre of their legislative and campaign agenda.
In the UK, 70 parliamentarians signed an open letter calling on the government to ban the creation of artificial superintelligence and work towards an international AI treaty. The letter reflects growing cross-party concern about the pace of development and the absence of a global governance regime.
However, the push for regulation faces strong resistance from the Trump administration, which has resisted calls for a slowdown. The White House has not endorsed the proposed pauses or bans, arguing that slowing AI development would cede leadership to geopolitical rivals. The administration's stance reflects a broader ideological divide over whether safety concerns should override competitive pressures.
The surge in concern has been attributed to several factors. Coverage of the Hugging Face incident and other «rogue AI» episodes, combined with people's own experiences using AI agents, appears to have opened the Overton window on discussing loss-of-control dangers. The timing, with Anthropic on the verge of an IPO and OpenAI edging closer to one, has also amplified the impact of the warnings.
Corporate governance is also under scrutiny. An E&Y survey found that half of companies are not following their own AI governance policies. Meanwhile, a watchdog group has alleged that OpenAI is violating California's new AI safety law. China's top spy has warned that AI could pose a risk to the Communist Party, adding an international dimension to the debate.
The coming weeks will test whether the momentum behind AI safety translates into concrete regulation, or whether the Trump administration's resistance and industry competition will once again stall efforts at domestic and international governance.
