Amodei on CBS: China is the ‘toughest dilemma’ for pacing AI
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told CBS News Sunday Morning that the industry had lied for too long about AI risks, called China the toughest dilemma for his pace-the-frontier plan, and said a global speed limit may be nearly impossible but still worth trying.
The Anthropic CEO said on Sunday television that the industry lied about AI risks, and that China is the hard part of slowing down. That is distinct from his Saturday essay.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei appeared on CBS News Sunday Morning in an interview with correspondent Jo Ling Kent. The cbsnews.com write-up of that broadcast — posted about 9:35 AM EDT — is the filing event. These are same-day on-the-record remarks as reported by CBS, with CNBC’s same-day pickup as corroboration.S.–China pact.
CBS quotes him: “I won’t lie to you – there are real dangers… And I think for too long the industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks.”
On exponential progress, as reported by CBS: Amodei said development has been on an exponential curve that is starting to get steeper. Asked what that means, he said it does not mean “panic today” or “shut it all down,” but “it’s a warning sign… that we need to slow down.”
Asked whether Anthropic would stop releasing more advanced models, Amodei told CBS: “It doesn’t mean that.” Pacing, on this interview, is not a halt. This filing is the Sunday television interview only.
Asked if the U.S. should slow if China would not, Amodei told CBS: “This is the toughest dilemma. This is the toughest aspect of our situation.”
On a global speed limit, as reported by CBS: he looks to nuclear arms agreements with the former Soviet Union as a possible model. Quoted: “The more long-term thing would be working together to put a speed limit on the rate of AI progress… I think that’s going to be very difficult, because the incentives to pull ahead in the military advantage that you get from that are so large. And honestly, I don’t know if it’s possible, but we should try.”
On private-company discomfort, as reported by CBS: “it has always been very strange that this technology is being built by a private company… Why isn’t this being built by government? And the strangest thing about it is, I agree with them. I’m uncomfortable.”
Asked about handing the technology to government, Amodei told CBS: “To the right combination of governments… I am concerned that one single government could abuse this technology just as easily as a single company could.” CBS also reports he pointed to “some kind of oversight, some kind of joint governance” by democratically elected governments — not a handover to one state.