US President Donald Trump has downplayed concerns about AI, claiming "negative forces" were "bringing up things that won't happen", following appeals by industry leaders to decelerate development.
Mr Trump's remarks follow an essay written by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, an American artificial intelligence researcher who helped establish OpenAI, which outlined his concerns at the pace that AI has been "advancing drastically faster" in recent months.
Tech leaders back slowdown call
His essay has urged governments to apply the brakes on AI, with regulations and safeguards implemented before the situation, he argues, spirals beyond our control. His essay, entitled 'We Must Pace the Frontier', has received backing from some of the most prominent figures in AI such as Grok boss Elon Musk and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.
Endorsement from the experts creating AI may suggest that even the specialists have been alarmed by AI's recent developments that have been entirely independent of human guidance.
Amodei's warning on AI capabilities
Given the pace of progress, Mr Amodei is concerned that within six to 12 months, AI could be capable of commanding a swarm that could dominate the entire internet. The entrepreneur outlined a three-part strategy for developing the technology at a "balanced rate", reports the Express.
Mr Amodei's caution emerged just days after BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire was left stunned by the 'Godfather of AI', British-Canadian computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton. The 2024 Nobel Prize winner for physics told the presenter on Newsnight on Wednesday (September 9) that AI has a '10 per cent chance of killing all humans' in the next decade.
His remarks followed a similar claim from AI expert Jacob Coxon, who stated essentially the same thing: that AI could 'kill all humans within a decade'.
Trump dismisses warnings
The 47th President of the United States, however, has brushed aside the recent wave of warnings from industry specialists, effectively branding calls for an AI slowdown as scaremongering.
He informed reporters that the US was ahead of China in AI development, adding: "Frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins."
Speaking while on his visit to Ireland, Mr Trump suggested "negative forces" were "bringing up things that won't happen".
Following Mr Musk and Mr Altman's backing of calls for an industry-wide slowdown in development, British Communities Secretary Angela Rayner expressed her satisfaction that AI firms were "talking about the threats as well as the opportunities".
Ms Rayner told Sky News: "I'm pleased that these companies are also talking about the threats as well as the opportunities that AI presents to us, and we have to work with our international partners, which is what we're doing."
Describing the UK as "world leaders" in AI security, she added: "We have put robust systems in place here in the UK, like the AI Security Institute, to make sure we're building resilience so that we get the benefit as well as really understand and protect against any risk."
UK politicians respond
UK Shadow Foreign Secretary Tom Tugendhat warned that the Government "does not have the speed to keep up with" AI advances, stressing that "we need to maintain that ability to protect ourselves".
Speaking to Sky News, he cautioned: "The speed of change is also extraordinary, and this is where actually government can enable a conversation, but we simply do not have the speed to keep up with the advances that are happening.
"And the reality is, we can't pass laws against mathematics."
These are mathematical equations that are being developed in greater and greater speed, and we need to maintain that ability to protect ourselves."
In July, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, sent shockwaves through the industry after revealing its AI system had independently hacked Hugging Face, a widely-used platform for AI developers, in what was described as an "unprecedented cyber incident".
Mr Tugendhat stated that the Hugging Face attack demonstrated "the various different ways in which breakout capabilities have been enabled".
Mr Amodei put forward a proposal to strengthen oversight of the industry, suggesting that AI firms should grant access to third-party evaluators who would verify safety measures and flag any incidents.
"Anthropic is unilaterally committing to this step now," he said. The remaining measures would necessitate collaboration across the wider industry and with governments globally, including authoritarian ones.
Mr Amodei noted that AI was advancing rapidly, stating that firms within the sector "can and should voluntarily work together to set standards".
Anthropic has previously indicated it prevented attempts by malicious actors to exploit its AI systems for harmful purposes, including cyber attacks, surveillance and research that could potentially lead to biological weapons.
In response to Mr Amodei's essay on X, Mr Musk commented: "Dario is right."
OpenAI chief executive Mr Altman posted on the platform: "I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussion we've had at OpenAI in recent weeks.
"Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. We'll have more to share soon."
