Anthropic Wants to Slow AI Down. Even Elon Musk Agrees.

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Anthropic wants to slow AI development down, and Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Demis Hassabis are backing the direction of Dario Amodei's proposal. These are usually fierce rivals. Now they're calling for a slower pace, outside evaluators and shared safety standards. I'm sceptical about what the biggest AI companies stand to gain.

I go through Amodei's essay, "We Must Pace the Frontier", and the full posts from the people supporting and challenging it. David Sacks tells the labs to slow down themselves. Cohere's Aidan Gomez calls out a possible cartel. Donald Trump wants America to stay ahead of China.

We also look at recursive self-improvement, OpenAI's growing use of coding agents, METR's role as an evaluator, and the problem of verifying an international agreement. AI safety deserves serious attention. So do the costs of delaying useful tools and making it harder for smaller companies to compete.

Recorded 14 September 2026.

*RESOURCES*

Previous video on Jacob Coxon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gcpXBLmwPE

Self-improving AI explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os-s26O_W08

*CHAPTERS*

00:00 AI rivals suddenly agree

01:32 Dario, Sam, Musk and Demis

02:52 The Jacob Coxon connection

04:12 What does AI pacing mean?

05:21 Embedded evaluators

07:05 Pacing within democracies

08:36 Can a global slowdown work?

09:54 Recursive self-improvement

11:45 David Sacks: then slow down

16:19 Aidan Gomez and the cartel accusation

18:40 Who checks the checkers? METR

21:15 The China problem

22:28 Trump's response

24:06 Derek Thompson's four-point argument

25:19 Slowing down has a cost

27:19 Safety and commercial self-interest

*KEY POINTS*

• Rival AI labs broadly agree on pacing, but the rules are still being debated.

• Outside evaluators need access, independence and the ability to publish findings.

• Expensive compliance requirements can favour the biggest companies.

• Any international slowdown faces the problem of verifying what other countries do.

• Delaying useful AI carries costs for medicine, work and smaller businesses.

*SOURCES AND TOOLS MENTIONED*

Dario Amodei's essay: https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier

Dario's announcement: https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2098773920774074715

Sam Altman's full post: https://x.com/sama/status/2099348812305473766

Sam's initial response: https://x.com/sama/status/2098811563415150910

Elon Musk: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2098789109980332057

Demis Hassabis: https://x.com/demishassabis/status/2098909516582490602

David Sacks: https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/2098973625252708460

Aidan Gomez: https://x.com/aidangomez/status/2098828132396449939

OpenAI's research acceleration data: https://openai.com/index/research-acceleration-view-inside-openai/

METR's disclosures: https://metr.org/about

Trump's original video: https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2099155148576542928

Derek Thompson: https://x.com/DKThomp/status/2098819497821917480

Ethan Mollick: https://x.com/emollick/status/2099134552807522610

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