Tech stocks fall after big AI groups call for slowdown
Tech stocks fall after big AI groups call for slowdown. I earnestly believe that AI has the potential to kill us all, and that we might be running out of time to avoid this outcome. ”Explore more on these topicsAI (artificial intelligence)Technology policyLouise HaighAnthropicOpenAILabourTUCnewsShareReuse this contentMore on this storyMore on this storyTrump facing AI backlash in Congress as push for guardrails intensifiesFull StoryAI isn’t going to end humanity. . . right? – Full Story podcastEurope must build own AI or risk getting cut off by US or China, says ECB’s LagardeAI-linked stocks slide after tech bosses call for slowdown in ‘reckless’ developmentOpenAI urges UK lawmakers to rein in technology amid growing safety fears OpenAI boss and Elon Musk back calls to put brakes on ‘reckless’ AI developmentUK lawmakers urge Burnham to back ban on superintelligent AI after chilling warningsThe Guardian view on controlling AI: humanity cannot outsource its survivalTech whistleblowers warn AI could wipe out humanity.
What happened
Photograph: Dado Ruvić/ReutersAnalysis‘Too little, too late’: critics perplexed and suspicious of AI leaders’ call for a slowdownRobert Booth UK technology editorFrom the Trump administration to AI experts, plans by the Anthropic boss to boost safety have spawned a largely negative response OpenAI boss and Elon Musk back slowdown on ‘reckless’ AI development Editorial: controlling AI – humanity cannot outsource its survival The safety debate that ignited when whistleblowers last week warned that the most advanced AI poses an existential threat to humanity should come with a health warning: side effects include whiplash.
Skip NavigationMarketsBusinessInvestingTechPolitics & PolicyVideoWatchlistInvesting ClubPROLivestreamMenuKey PointsPresident Trump sent a swam of social media post on Monday, slamming AI leaders who have been calling for a slowdown in model development. AI infrastructure stocks led the market lower on the uncertainty created by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's weekend essay calling for an industry-wide slowdown in the advancement of new AI models. Jason Henry | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAfter the leaders of Anthropic, OpenAI and other artificial intelligence companies spent the weekend warning of the dangers of advanced AI and calling for a slowdown in model development, President Donald Trump filled up his social media feed on Monday with posts undermining those efforts.
Labour MPs and peers have called for the government to further cooperate with international partners to build regulations for the technology after three Anthropic researchers warned that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity within the decade. View image in fullscreenAnthropic’s chief executive, Dario Amodei, has called on the AI industry to coordinate a slowdown. AIPolicyReportIs Big Tech’s AI slowdown a safety pact or a cartel?
The wider picture
Major AI companies want to ‘pace the frontier’ — but their proposed solutions need real teeth. by Hayden FieldSep 14, 2026, 10:59 PM UTC Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesAIPolicyReportIs Big Tech’s AI slowdown a safety pact or a cartel? You need to slow down. ’”Kokotajlo said that after years of people “yelling at them to do this” — including more than 1,000 AI lab employees signing a public letter from July, which called for a slowdown in AI development after the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident — the CEOs are “now bowing to that pressure and also claiming credit for it, [although] not rightfully. ”Overall, a handful of sources told The Verge they believe that the verbal agreement made by the AI leaders is a step in the right direction.
A. has that, in spades! ” He also called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang while Huang was onstage at a conference — Trump told the crowd on speakerphone that recent concerns about AI were a “hoax” and that “the robots will not be taking over. ”As for concerns that regulation could hold back other companies or open source developers, calls for slowdowns have been almost exclusively aimed at big frontier AI labs defined by exact size metrics, many industry experts told The Verge.
Kokotajlo’s AI Futures Project, for instance, proposed AI labs giving auditors access to their compute budget — and pledging to decrease their compute budget for research significantly, which would then slow down AI advancement and allow other AI labs to catch up. (Amodei’s essay already called for AI labs to allow external third-party auditors — like METR, Apollo, and Redwood Research — to embed within their organizations to some extent and potentially be able to flag, and blow the whistle on, problematic findings. )“If I am going to die at the hands of killer AI, I want it to be American, not Chinese. ”Arguably the single biggest challenge to an AI slowdown can be summarized in one word: China.
One X user wrote, “If I am going to die at the hands of killer AI, I want it to be American, not Chinese. ”Redwood Research’s Shlegeris said it wasn’t in the best interest of neither the US nor the Chinese government to pursue AI development in a “reckless” way, adding that “it would not be unprecedented levels of international coordination. ”“[People are] taking for granted that China won’t cooperate,” Johnston said, adding, “This is an issue so serious and so widespread that it seems like it’s in everyone’s interest to coordinate on it, in the same way it was in both the US and Russia’s interest to coordinate on nuclear de-proliferation. ”On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun did push back on the calls for a slowdown, calling it “fearmongering. ”The Midas Project’s Johnston and Redwood Research’s Shlegeris both said that even in the absence of Chinese cooperation, it’s still vital to encourage US coordination.
And for the Tech Oversight Project’s Haworth, the slowdown presents an opportunity to “position ourselves as the compass for how AI technology can be developed and used. ” She sees arguments to the contrary as part of a familiar playbook. Amodei cited RSI as a major factor in his decision to call for a slowdown: “since roughly this summer, AI has been advancing drastically faster. ” He wrote in his recent essay that RSI is “starting to happen across the industry, including at Anthropic … Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems, and so must be pursued very carefully, if at all. ” Amodei proposed implementing “some kind of ‘speed limit’” on the rate of RSI and compared it to caps on missile numbers.
25% off tickets now Back by popular demand: Save up to $300 on Disrupt Close Image Credits:Fabrice COFFRINI/AFP / Getty Images AI Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tells Trump ‘we’re not going to let [an AI slowdown] happen’ Amanda Silberling 2:51 PM PDT · September 14, 2026 While Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was onstage at the All-In Summit on Monday morning in Los Angeles, he got a phone call that he couldn’t send to voicemail — it was from President Donald Trump.
What has been reported
Outside technology, the market rotated into traditional defensive stocks that are less tied to the broader economy and the data center buildout. South Korea’s tech-heavy Kospi slides as Wall Street is set to open lower Skip to main contentSkip to navigation The easiest way not to build super-intelligence is for Anthropic to agree not to build it, said David Sacks, co-chair of Trump’s council of advisers on science and technology. Yes, he was talking about artificial superintelligence – an as-yet-nonexistent version of the technology that outcompetes humans in most domains – but his comments, and the chorus of experts that echoed him, jangled plenty of nerves.
In signs that a coordinated slowdown might not be just talk, some of Amodei’s precautionary ideas quickly attracted backing from his rivals – Sam Altman at OpenAI and Elon Musk at SpaceX. Perhaps there were reasons to be hopeful after a bumpy week: at least the AI companies were talking about a slowdown before anyone got badly hurt. Sacks is co-chair of Trump’s council of advisers on science and technology. skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system,” he told Amodei.
Another criticism of Amodei’s call for “pacing” of AI progress to allow safety measures and guardrails to keep up has came from Prof Stuart Russell, one of the world’s leading AI experts.
What happens next
Amodei proposed a slowdown to free up time to make advances in systems to keep the AIs aligned to human interests. He added: “We need an immediate, indefinite, international moratorium on frontier AI development. ”Explore more on these topicsAI (artificial intelligence)Technology sectorComputingAnthropicOpenAITrump administrationanalysisShareReuse this contentMost viewedMost viewed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay over the weekend, calling on governments and the industry to impose more thorough safety standards. FGFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNTDario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anthropic, during an interview on "The Circuit with Emily Chang" at Anthropic's headquarters in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, April 30, 2026.
Trump's outspoken opposition to new AI regulation creates another challenge for model leaders Anthropic and OpenAI, which are trying to simultaneously grow fast enough to justify their almost trillion-dollar valuations while also responding to intensifying concerns that their technology is advancing so fast it could spin out of human control. In a fast-growing industry that lacks much by way of federal regulation, Amodei called for model evaluators to embed with frontier AI companies, and for the establishment of safety standards among democratic countries, with coordination between democratic and authoritarian governments "to the extent this is possible.
""Concerning AI, when, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?
The report has been compiled by The Daily Waves using information reported across theguardian.com, cnbc.com. Details are presented according to the information available at the time of publication and may change as authorities, organisers or other relevant parties provide updates.