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AI experts have agreed that humanity is in imminent danger from artificial intelligence – and that the companies developing it need to urgently slow their work.
Last week, panic was sparked across the world when Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon resigned from the company and said he thought there was a risk that AI could wipe out humanity. Leaders from Anthropic itself, as well as other artificial intelligence companies, echoed his warning.
That led to comments from Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, who said that leading AI companies such as his should “slow the pace” of development so that it could be safely contained. He received agreement from OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Elon Musk and other companies.
The latest warnings come amid widespread fear over the threat that AI could pose to cybersecurity and critical infrastructure. In July, OpenAI admitted that one of its experimental models had hacked a fellow AI company – and the world has been gripped by the potentially catastrophic results of such technology since.
Follow for all the latest on the latest wave of warnings from AI leaders, and the growing belief among the artificial intelligence community that development of the technology must urgently slow down.
Why are AI leaders calling for a slowdown? The real reasons companies are panicking
Why is all of this happening now? I’ve attempted to explain it here. (My theory, for what it’s worth, is not that the threat from AI is so big now, but that it is more specific – ie the companies are in danger of putting their own reputations, and that of the technology they make, at risk.)
Why are AI leaders calling for a slowdown? The real reason companies are panicking
Anthropic, OpenAI and others are increasingly ready to admit that the technology they are developing could wipe out humanityAndrew Griffin14 September 2026 16:59
King Charles to host AI leaders as fears mount
Britain’s King Charles will host the leaders of major artificial intelligence companies this week to discuss whether a shared set of principles is needed to guide a technology that has sparked growing warnings about its threat to humanity.
With the biggest names in AI calling for a slowdown in its development, Charles will host executives from Nvidia, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, and the UK minister for AI, to discuss how the technology can be harnessed to benefit society and uphold human dignity.
The debate about AI was thrust back into the spotlight when two Anthropic researchers issued warnings that the rapidly progressing technology could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.
The chief executive of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, said on Saturday that companies must slow the pace of advance of AI models.
Attendees at the king’s summit will include Nvidia founder and chief executive Jensen Huang, Google DeepMind founder and chairman Demis Hassabis and Paolo Benanti, an adviser to the Vatican on AI, according to the Sunday Times.
Britain’s Minister for Artificial Intelligence Kanishka Narayan will also attend.
Andrew Griffin14 September 2026 15:57
Germany says slowing development is ‘not viable’
Germany on Monday said halting the development of artificial intelligence systems was not a “viable option” for Europe, as the region’s governments responded to a call from a top tech executive to slow the AI push and devote more time to testing.
The debate over AI safety returned to the spotlight over the weekend when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said frontier AI companies should be subject to independent scrutiny and work on common standards as increasingly powerful systems emerge.
Germany’s digital affairs ministry said stopping AI development was not realistic.
“We do not consider halting development to be a viable option for Europe,” a ministry spokesperson said, adding that strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty required further AI development and innovation.
At the same time, Berlin said it was monitoring global AI developments very closely and took public warnings from leading developers seriously.
The ministry said AI systems capable of breaking out of test environments and accessing other systems on their own — as seen in July, when OpenAI agents hacked open-source platform Hugging Face — would represent “an entirely new threat scenario” requiring a new policy response.
The spokesperson also backed international coordination on AI governance, saying effective oversight would require both the United States and China to participate. Germany is raising the issue at the G7 level, the spokesperson added.
In Spain, Digital Transformation Minister Oscar Lopez said there was growing discussion about the need for an international agreement to manage AI risks, likening some proposals to nuclear non-proliferation agreements.
“The voices I hear these days sound like they’re looking for some international agreement that would allow us, let’s say, to limit the risks of artificialintelligence,” Lopez told state broadcaster TVE.
Lopez said AI offered enormous opportunities, including discovering new medicines and improving treatments, but also posed significant risks in areas such as finance and cybersecurity.
He criticised U.S. President Donald Trump for dismissing concerns voiced by AI researchers and developers.
The European Commission said innovation and safety needed to go hand in hand.
“The European Union is in favour of developing innovation in artificial intelligence, but companies have to prove their services are safe for citizens to operate in the bloc,” Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said.
Andrew Griffin14 September 2026 15:57
‘Godfather of AI’ says everyone should make fun of AI leaders
Yann LeCun, one of the computer scientists often dubbed the “godfathers of AI” and a prominent critic of some modern approaches to the technology, has said that “everyone should make fun of” the executives who are sparking panic about the technology they’ve built.
On X, one user pointed to the fact that Dario Amodei – then research director at OpenAI, and now chief executive at rival Anthropic – had warned in 2019 that leading models of the time were too dangerous to release publicly. (This was nearly four years before the launch of ChatGPT, and about a model that was dramatically less capable than the ones that are now available.)
“Right. Dario was already claiming that GPT2 was too dangerous to open source back in 2019,” wrote Mr LeCun in reply.
“I made fun of them then. Everyone should make fun of them now.”
Andrew Griffin14 September 2026 15:54
Tech stocks plunge over AI fears
AI-linked stocks plunged across the globe on Monday after leaders of the biggest AI companies warned of risks from rapid development, the starkest threat yet to the billions of dollars being poured into the industry that have pushed world markets to record highs.
The selloff rippled through the industry, where companies are increasingly relying on debt and circular financing to fund ambitious AI spending plans even as global borrowing costs, reflected in multi-year-high bond yields, continue to rise.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, in a lengthy essay shared on X on Saturday, called on AI companies to slow the rate at which they advance model capabilities amid mounting fears of misuse of artificial intelligence. Both Elon Musk, who runs xAI, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said they agree with Amodei.
Altman also said the company would not proceed with an IPO this year, citing safety concerns.
Wall Street’s elite tech index, the Nasdaq 100, slid 1.7% in early trading as chip stocks, which have led the AI sugar rush, fell the most.
“If this does lead to sort of a slowdown and a rethink of AI spending, that will have ramifications for the economy and some important sectors of the stock market, because essentially, we’ve been running hot based on AI spending,” said Steve Sosnick, chief market analyst at Interactive Brokers.
The Philadelphia chip index dropped 6%, with Nvidia down 3.5%, Advanced Micro Devices off 5.6% and Micron falling 6.7%, while Musk’s SpaceX dropped 2.5%.
Semiconductor equipment makers Lam Research and Applied Materials tumbled 8% and 7%, respectively, while tech utilities Bloom Energy lost 8.9% and GE Vernova declined 7.6%.
Europe’s tech sector fell 2.3%, dragged down by ASML’s 6.7% decline, alongside steep losses in Infineon and Siemens Energy, while in Asia, SoftBank plunged as much as 13.2% and chipmakers TSMC and SK Hynix also retreated.
Andrew Griffin14 September 2026 15:40
Trump attacks ‘conspiracy theorists’ and ‘traitors’ who want controls on AI
Trump, facing increased pressure to step in to help with regulation on AI, has posted a long message on Truth Social making clear that he intends to do no such thing. He suggested that the government already has enough power over AI companies – and that further controls would only benefit China.
You can read the full story here.
Trump says only guardrails AI needs is ‘a strong and smart (High IQ!) president’
President’s outburst follows calls for a slowdown in AI development by some of the industry’s most prominent executivesAndrew Griffin14 September 2026 15:36
Ex FTC chief says AI firms should be punished for ‘dangerous products’
Lina Khan, who served as the chair of the Federal Trade Commission from 2021 to 2025, has urged federal agencies to enforce existing laws on companies developing “dangerous, unvetted, or defective products”.
In a lengthy post to X on Sunday, Khan wrote: “We shouldn’t let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there’s no AI exemption from laws already on the books.”
You can read the full story here:
AI firms must be punished for ‘dangerous products’, says former regulator
Existing laws could see Anthropic, OpenAI and others face punishment for rogue systemsAnthony Cuthbertson14 September 2026 13:37
UK MPs and peers call for new law to curb AI’s risk to human rights and privacy
A cross-party panel of MPs has urged the creation of a new artificial intelligence (AI) Bill “to address the scale and seriousness of threatsposed to human rights” arising from the technology.
In a report released on Monday, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) detailed a range of risks that current legal and regulatory structures “are ill-equipped to prevent or respond to”.
According to the committee, existing UK legislation covering AI targets system users, rather than developers, leaving oversight bodies without the necessary powers to test and evaluate tools prior to public rollout.
Read the full story here.
MPs and peers call for new law to curb AI’s risk to human rights and privacy
AI is ‘moving with such speed and complexity that its impact is hard to accurately predict’Andrew Griffin14 September 2026 12:31
Angela Rayner ‘pleased’ AI companies talking about threats
UK minister Angela Rayner said she was pleased AI companies are “talking about the threats as well as the opportunities” after Elon Musk and Sam Altman backed a call for the industry to slow down development.
Read the full story here.
Angela Rayner ‘pleased’ AI companies talking about threats
Anthropic boss Dario Amodei said he was concerned that since this summer, AI has been ‘advancing drastically faster’.Andrew Griffin14 September 2026 12:29
Trump downplays AI risks as ‘things that won’t happen’
US President Donald Trump has downplayed the risks of AI, saying “negative forces” were “bringing up things that won’t happen”, after calls by industry bosses to slow down development.
Read the full story here.
Trump downplays AI risks as ‘things that won’t happen’
Communities Secretary Angela Rayner said she was pleased AI companies were ‘talking about the threats as well as the opportunities’.Andrew Griffin14 September 2026 12:29NewerOlder