AI industry leaders call for slower development pace

Leaders of major artificial intelligence firms are advocating for a slower pace of development to ensure safety research keeps up with technological progress. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for pacing the frontier, a sentiment echoed by Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who committed to implementing independent evaluators with employee-level access.

In contrast, President Donald Trump has rejected calls to slow development, aiming to maintain the United States' technological lead. Following legislative proposals from figures like Sanders and Casar to ban superintelligence, Trump signed a voluntary insurance agreement with industry leaders and appointed Jay Clayton to lead the new Super Intelligence Force.

The economic stakes are significant. Major hyperscalers, including Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Oracle, and Meta, are projected to spend approximately $800 billion on AI infrastructure this year, a 94% increase from the previous year, with projections reaching $1.2 trillion by 2027. While some analyses suggest AI investments contributed up to 39% of GDP growth in early 2025, other economists note that the actual contribution to growth may be negligible. Financial institutions such as Fitch and the BIS have issued warnings regarding a potential collapse of the investment boom.