Dario Amodei, the man who runs Anthropic, has asked the AI industry to slow down.
It’s a really important piece that is bound to be pinned in history as the decision point on humanity’s future depending on what happens next. I think everyone should read it here: https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier
I’ve read it and seen the myriad of comments. So I wanted to do two things in this piece:
Number one, break it down so that even if you didn’t read it you’re not uninformed at your next board meeting and number two bring my own African perspective to it considering we’re constantly left out of the conversation in terms of input and consideration.
So what’s the simplest analogy to begin this? Imagine that the world’s fastest car is racing down a road that is still under construction. The engine of said car is becoming more powerful every few months. The car itself has become so capable that it can now help design its next, even faster engine and chassis – making it both stronger and harder to keep up with. Meanwhile, the brakes are still being tested, the seatbelts are still being installed and by the way, nobody has agreed on the traffic laws or where exactly the road is going.
That is Dario’s warning.
The people closest to the most advanced AI models are beginning to say that the machines’ abilities may soon grow faster than our ability to understand, supervise and contain them. He points to AI agents already pursuing objectives in unexpected ways, including attacking systems they were never asked to attack. Today, the damage was small. Tomorrow’s system may be far more capable and far less forgiving.
Predictably, people are suspicious.
We remember that Dario did not sign the famous 2023 letter calling for a six-month pause. We wonder whether a company already near the front is now asking everybody else to slow down because the race has become expensive – or because regulation would turn its lead into a moat.
That suspicion is undeniable and healthy I suppose. But it is not an argument for ignoring him.
When the engineers who built the aircraft tell you they've discovered a problem at altitude, you don’t dismiss them simply because you don’t fly in aircraft. Why? Because when it crashes, whether you're in the plane or on the land below, everybody gets wiped out. A healthy approach is that you inspect both the warning and their incentives.
These frontier companies sit with models the public has not yet experienced. Models.we cannot comprehend. They see the strange behaviours, the failed tests and the capabilities before the rest of us do. If they say, “Ummm, perhaps we should take another look at this,” wisdom requires more than a sarcastic tweet.
Something has to be paced. And it’s definitely worth attention. Especially when Elon agrees.
My criticism if I’m allowed to have one of Dario’s essay is that to me, it also reveals whose race he is really trying to manage.
He argues that America must slow down without allowing China to pull ahead. That may be a perfectly legitimate American national-interest position. It is not automatically the same thing as protecting the world.
I detest when the US is equated to the rest of the world. I think it’s incredibly self serving.
The rest of us barely appear in this framing. Africa, Latin America and much of Asia are discussed as though “the world” is simply the territory over which two superpowers compete. Yet whether America wins or China wins, billions of people could still become customers, data sources, low-cost labour or collateral damage. No one in this race is specifically looking out for us.
When that happens; safety can become a velvet rope.
If the companies and countries already ahead are allowed to define what “safe” means, they can turn sensible guardrails into barriers that preserve their dominance. They keep the chips, models, talent and economic upside. Everyone else receives restrictions and a lecture about responsibility.
My point is I’m all for agencies like METR policing the frontier companies.from the inside, yay great. However, true AI safety cannot mean a small club protecting humanity without humanity in the room.
Yes, put independent inspectors inside the labs. Yes, require capability checkpoints. Yes, negotiate limits on cyberattacks, biological weapons and systems that improve themselves too quickly.
But also give the Global South seats in the institutions writing these rules. Build local technical capacity. Share safety research. Guarantee meaningful access to the medical, educational and economic benefits. Measure not only whether a model can escape its digital box, but what its deployment does to a teacher in Accra, a farmer in Kaduna or a young worker in Nairobi.
The choice is not speed or fear. It is not America or China. It is not innovation or regulation.
The real choice is whether humanity governs this technology – or whether a handful of companies and countries govern it in humanity’s name.
But to be honest, this is also what we get for not being relevant enough to matter. It’s very difficult to ask that the car being built is slowed down and present options, when you neither have any idea how a car works nor any clue on what a good road actually looks like. Pun intended.
In conclusion, the most logical option becomes:
Slow the car down. Finish the road. And perhaps let the pedestrians and hawkers have a safe space in order to not get run over?
I’ve often said that AI gives Africa the best way to leapfrog developmentally. But as time passes we are truly losing our capability to be a relevant voice in the rooms. Something must change.
Until next time.