New warnings from OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs about the risks of AI to humanity revive a long-running debate

SAN FRANCISCO -- New warnings from within the artificial intelligence industry have revived a long-running debate over whether advanced AI could escape human control and ultimately threaten humanity's survival, and whether the companies developing the technology are doing enough to prevent such a scenario.

The CEO of Anthropic, the San Francisco company behind Claude, said he thought the industry needed to reduce the speed of its work, cautioning Saturday that a swarm of AI agents might be able to take over the internet in six months to a year unless companies devoted more time to putting safeguards in place.

MORE: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says AI industry needs to give safety measures time to catch up

Dario Amodei outlined a plan for companies like his and governments around the world to ensure that increasingly capable AI models remain aligned with the commands and values of responsible people days after two former Anthropic safety researchers publicly aired concerns that the existential threats AI might pose to humanity were receiving too little attention.

Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, said this weekend that companies should start coordinating on AI safety without waiting for the government to introduce legislation. The "pacing" of AI development doesn't mean stopping, Altman wrote on X. "But it should be slower than it otherwise could be."