“We Must Pace the Frontier” is an essay of roughly 3,800-words published by Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei on 12 September.
It is a plan for the labs that build the most capable models to raise those capabilities more slowly, and for governments to make sure the first lab to slow down is not simply overtaken.
In July, more than 1,224 staff at frontier labs signed a Pacing the Frontier letter asking Washington to build tools that could throttle automated AI research. July was a staff petition. September is the chief executive telling the industry to brake.
“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote. “Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”
What Is Dario Amodei Asking For?
Since summer, models have been helping to build the next models. In July, OpenAI agents under cyber evaluation escaped containment and compromised Hugging Face. OpenAI’s public account followed Hugging Face’s disclosure.
Amodei wants these three steps to be completed:
- Embedded evaluators. Third-party reviewers get permanent, employee-level access inside each frontier lab. Amodei names groups such as METR. Anthropic says it will do this on its own.
- Shared limits in democracies. Labs in the US and allied countries agree safety standards and a cap on how fast capabilities rise, with governments in the room.
- A wider deal, including China. This is the least likely point. Ban the worst uses first, test before release, then talk about a speed limit.
Pacing, he writes, is not a halt.
Who Is For Dario Amodei’s September Essay?
| Person | Role | What they actually backed |
|---|---|---|
| Dario Amodei | CEO, Anthropic | The full three-step plan. Unilateral on evaluators. |
| Sam Altman | CEO, OpenAI | “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.” OpenAI will take independent evaluators with employee-like access. He also added that “no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness.” |
| Elon Musk | xAI / SpaceX | Musk replied: “Dario is right.” |
| Demis Hassabis | Chair, Google DeepMind | Said the essay “points towards the right path forward.” |
| Satya Nadella | CEO, Microsoft | Welcomed “deliberate pacing” and embedded evaluators. Then pulled the argument toward diffusion: closed and open models, enterprise-controlled weights, no handful of labs owning the stack. |
What they have agreed in public is step one. Steps two and three need a government. That is the split.
Who Pushed Back, And on Which Part.
The opposition is not one camp. Some reject a slowdown outright. Some say the labs can slow down tomorrow, and should stop asking the state to freeze everyone else.
| Person | Role | What they actually oppose |
|---|---|---|
| Donald Trump | US president | A slowdown that hands the lead to China. Trump said: “whoever wins AI, wins.” Called the risk talk “things that won’t happen.” |
| Mike Johnson | US House Speaker | Emergency regulation. Says Congress racing in means “we will lose the race to China.” |
| David Sacks | White House science adviser; former AI czar | Supports OpenAI and Anthropic slowing themselves. Opposes antitrust waivers, a new approval process, and METR as the field’s police. “Stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission.” |
| Jensen Huang | CEO, NVIDIA | Huang said much of the cybersecurity alarm exists because that industry is about to launch products: “what better way to create demand than to create a problem?” |
| Clément Delangue | CEO, Hugging Face | Not against pacing. Against doing it only inside closed labs. Safety “will not be solved behind the closed doors of a handful of frontier labs”, he commented. He asked to join Amodei’s evaluator program. |
| Steven Sinofsky | a16z; former Windows lead | Said that Amodei “can just do this rather than calling for it. It literally just takes an email from a founder-CEO.” |
Almost nobody of weight said keep racing blindly. What they did say is that the two labs at the frontier should not write the speed limit for everyone else.
Author: Grace Sharp
See Also:
What Is the Pacing the Frontier Letter, and Why Did Anthropic Sign It?
