Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, proposed Thursday that the world’s top AI developers coordinate on a way to temporarily pause development of advanced systems, saying the technology is improving so quickly that humans risk losing control.
In a blog post, Anthropic said that as cutting-edge AI gets increasingly faster at carrying out tasks, “it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause” its development. The company said its internal research institute plans to explore the issue in collaboration with others and “take actions” to help build systems for a credible slowdown or pause, though it did not specify what those actions might be.
Anthropic’s proposal positions the company as a proponent of industry-led restraint, even as it continues to develop and deploy advanced AI systems. The company did not suggest a timeline or mechanism for such a pause.
A rival approach emerged separately. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, published a report Wednesday arguing that “democratic governments — not private companies acting alone — must ultimately determine the rules, safeguards, and accountability mechanisms” for advanced AI. The report did not directly respond to Anthropic’s proposal but offered a contrasting vision of how governance should be structured.
The two statements signal a split among leading AI companies over who should control the pace and direction of AI development, as the technology’s capabilities continue to expand.