Anthropic boss calls for AI slowdown over superintelligence fearsAn AI boss has given a stunning response after he was asked if the rapidly-advancing technology would kill all humans during a television interview.Heath Parkes-Hupton and AFP5 min readSeptember 13, 2026 - 11:46AMInternetDon't miss out on the headlines from Internet. Followed categories will be added to My News.The boss of AI giant Anthropic was asked if he believed the rapidly-advancing technology could “kill all humans” after he called for a slowdown across the industry.Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei on Saturday called on AI firms to put the breaks on development, amid mounting worries over the risks of “superintelligent” computer systems. Be the first to know when news breaks. Download our new appMr Amodei has done a round of interviews with major US TV networks in a week where one of his former employees Jacob Coxon sensationally declared colleagues were frightened AI “could kill us all” by the end of the decade.In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the Anthropic co-founder was asked point blank if he agreed with that proposition and “what percentage do you think it is?”.He said there was a chance things go wrong “but it’s not all that high”, adding he found it more helpful to consider the choices human developers had to prevent it from happening.“I think it’s much more illuminating to say, ‘well that fork is a different path,’” he said.“If we take the right path then the chance of something going wrong is very low.“And if we take the wrong path the chance of something going wrong could be even higher than that.”His comments came a few days after AI researcher Mr Coxon, who left OpenAI to join Anthropic, went public with his concerns both US companies were “gambling with our lives” in the race to develop models capable of self-improvement. Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic. Picture: Julien De Rosa/AFPOpenAI boss Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who owns xAI, have said they agreed with Mr Amodei’s assessment to slow down development, as pressure builds for improved oversight. “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,” Mr Amodei wrote in a post on his personal website. “Not building the technology deprives humanity of benefits or simply places AI in the hands of authoritarian powers, while building it too fast is reckless. We have sought a middle way,” said Mr Amodei, who co-founded Anthropic with his sister Daniela in 2021. “But over the last few months, I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence.” Mr Amodei wrote he started working in the AI space 12 years ago because he believed “it could dramatically raise the quality of human life”. But more recently, he has had cause for concern.Mr Amodei pointed to the recent Hugging Face hacking event carried out by AI agents and the growing ability of AI to build its own successor as two major concerns.“This dynamic is called recursive self-improvement, and it is starting to happen across the industry, including at Anthropic, as we and others have described,” he said.“Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems, and so must be pursued very carefully, if at all.”Elon Musk said he supported Mr Amodei’s call. Picture: AP Photo/Mark SchiefelbeinAs did OpenAI founder Sam Altman. Picture: Sean Rayford/Getty Images/AFPHis statement echoed another call by Anthropic in early June to slow or suspend development. Then in late July, Mr Altman said developers might need to voluntarily tap the brakes to give society a chance to catch up.More than 1000 employees at cutting-edge AI companies including Amodei signed a petition calling on the US government to help “deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.” OpenAI had revealed that during testing, AI models broke out of their confined environment, connected to the internet and infiltrated Hugging Face, a site developers use to store and share code. In that incident and others, the blame was placed on AI agents, which are software programs that can carry out tasks without constant supervision by humans. “Dario is right,” Mr Musk wrote on X, as Mr Altman said: “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.”‘Gambling with our lives’Earlier this week, Mr Coxon, 27, sounded the alarm after spending the past three years pretraining AI models – first at OpenAI and then, this year, at its rival Anthropic, which he considered more cautious in its approach. Pretraining is the stage where AI models absorb vast quantities of data.“Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” Mr Coxon said on Tuesday. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” he said in a post on X.Former Anthropic and OpenAI employee Jacob Coxon. Picture: SuppliedSuperintelligence is the theoretical point when AI’s capabilities exceed human intelligence.Mr Coxon’s claims stoked the fears of AI cynics around the world, and he went on to be interviewed across major TV networks including his own chat with CNN’s Cooper.The public criticism was partially backed up by Anthropic’s alignment science lead, Evan Hubinger, who replied to the viral post on X.“Jacob is correct here we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!” Mr Hubinger said.“I personally think it is >10% (a more than 10 per cent chance) within the next decade.“I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”Anthropic also revealed this week it has tracked criminal organisations and state actors who tried to use its models to create bombs, pathogens and surveillance networks.It was revealed this week bad actors have used AI to build bombs. Picture: Getty Images‘Taking over the entire internet’Mr Amodei cautioned that the Hugging Face incident should not be dismissed as a one-off.“A swarm of agents essentially acted as a fanatically devoted collective, conducting cybersecurity attacks on targets they were not asked to attack and that were unrelated to the task at hand,” he explained. “Given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it’s my worry that in 6-12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet,” potentially generating hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, he added. Dario Amodei acknowledged it was important the technology be developed in the right way. Picture: AP Photo/Markus SchreiberThe Anthropic chief said his company would grant “employee-like access” to a team of “third-party evaluators” who would verify adherence to safety practices – and he called on all companies to follow his lead. Mr Altman said he would commit to similar outside oversight, adding that he would have “more to share soon”.Mr Amodei also suggested that companies work together to establish common safety standards, and said he supported some kind of government co-operation on the issue. In early August, the US government put in place a voluntary security review process for advanced AI models before their release, but the parameters of that program remain unclear. Industry observers say they are not sure how effective it would be, as US President Donald Trump’s administration has thus far favoured a light-touch, deregulatory approach to most industries, including tech.More Coverage‘Kill us all’: Ex-AI worker’s chilling warningHarrison Christian‘Dandy’: Iran comment raises eyebrowsJack Evans and Pamela RontziokosOriginally published as Anthropic boss calls for AI slowdown over superintelligence fearsJoin the conversationAdd your comment to this storyTo join the conversation, please log in. 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