Elon Musk and Sam Altman Agree With Anthropic Boss — AI Must ‘Slow Down’ to Avoid ‘Catastrophic Damage’

LEFT: Elon Musk ((AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File) RIGHT: Sam Altman ( (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei isn’t the only tech exec who is worried about the rapid – and potentially dangerous — development of AI.

Both OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Tesla/SpaceX boss Elon Musk announced on Saturday they agreed with Amodei, shortly after he wrote “we must slow down the pace” of AI before it does more to harm humanity than help it.

“I believe that AI could cure most major diseases in the next 5–10 years, greatly accelerate economic growth rates, create a world of abundance and empowerment, and usher in a renaissance of democracy and freedom,” Amodei said in a lengthy statement.

But the CEO also warned AI could progress too fast, leading to a “misalignment” with humans that risks “catastrophic damage.”

“Like many technologies before it, AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious… They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute,” Amodei wrote.

He added, “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”

Exactly one hour after Amodei’s shared his post on X, Musk re-shared it and added simply, “Dario is right.”

And Altman followed up with his own post backing Amodei.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks,” Altman wrote. “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.”

Their support stands out for a few reasons. First, Musk — beyond running SpaceX and Tesla — is also the man behind SpaceXAI, the AI company he launched in 2023; its Grok model is the built-in AI model on X. And Altman, of course, is the leader of OpenAI, which is the company behind ChatGPT.

But their alignment on this issue comes after Musk and Altman have been fierce rivals for years, with Musk suing Altman and OpenAI in 2024 for ditching its initial goal of being a nonprofit. Musk lost the lawsuit in May. So it’s rare to see them publicly come together on such a major topic.

Musk has warned for years AI, if not harnessed properly, could wipe out humans. He testified in the OpenAI trial earlier this year he was worried about a “Terminator outcome” where the technology could go rogue and “kill us all.” He has said at other times he pegs the likelihood AI kills off all humans at between 10-20%.

Both Musk and Altman temporarily putting their feud aside to back Amodei comes as regulating AI has been a hot topic over the last few days, after a former Anthropic researcher warned AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade.”

One day later, a former OpenAI researcher told Joe Rogan AI was “basically on a track” to take control away from humans.

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