Huang and Zuckerberg back AI safety without a slowdown: Why Big Tech is betting on market forces to police AI

The AI industry faces a divide over development pace, with leaders like Sam Altman advocating for a slowdown, while Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg support continued progress, emphasising market incentives and internal safety measures for AI advancements.

The debate over at what pace AI should advance is creating a massive divide in the technology industry. While OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and others are calling for a slowdown in the development of certain AI models, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg are backing a different approach. They say the industry should continue to push ahead, relying on market incentives and companies’ own safety measures to manage the risks.

Huang, during a recent conference, said that market forces already provide a mechanism that can keep AI companies in check, so new laws or regulations are not really required.

“It’s a false choice,” Huang told Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who was also present at the conference, arguing that companies could pursue both rapid development and safety at the same time.

However, he noted that AI companies should move quickly but pause when they believe a product is not safe.

“Run as fast as you can,” he said, adding that companies should stop and “make sure you get it right” if they feel a product or the company itself is out of control.

In a similar note, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg said AI companies have strong commercial incentives to invest in safety and added that AI labs that fail to focus on “alignment”—work aimed at ensuring AI systems adhere to human values—could fall behind.

“There is a lot of debate about slowing progress on capabilities until alignment catches up,” Zuckerberg said. “My view is that trust and alignment are quickly becoming the most important capabilities that will differentiate agents and models.”

Because AI labs risk “significant liability if their models cause harm,” Zuckerberg believes

Meta, Zuckerberg said, has itself delayed shipping its Muse AI technologies because of safety and security concerns.

“We just did it as part of our day-to-day work because it was clearly the right thing for people and for us,” Zuckerberg said.

This comes as calls for caution around AI have intensified. Amodei has urged the industry to slow the pace of model capability improvements, a proposal later endorsed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and criticised by President Donald Trump. Elon Musk has also called for stronger safeguards, but suggested a market-based mechanism: leading AI companies should allow competitors to test their models before public release.

Alarm about the potential harm from AI grew this week when Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, stating that the “people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Coxon said in a series of posts that both Anthropic and OpenAI are prioritising the race for advanced AI over safety. He noted two companies were “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”

He also warned that some people working on AI believe the technology could pose a serious threat to humanity by the end of the decade.

“Do not underestimate the power of this technology,” he wrote. “These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionise any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.”

The post went viral, attracting more than 100 million views and support from some AI researchers and public figures. Two current Anthropic employees also responded to his post in agreement.

Sanchari Ghosh is an Assistant Editor at Mint with over 12 years of experience in journalism, specialising in personal finance, DLT & DeFi, geopolitics and foreign policy, with a particular emphasis on how these areas intersect. She writes extensively about how money works in everyday life—helping readers navigate personal finance decisions. As AI reshapes investing behaviour, capital is increasingly flowing into decentralized ecosystems, redefining how assets are managed, traded, and valued. She focuses on explaining how money flows within frameworks like Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), DeFi protocols, and crypto markets—while also exploring what the future of money could look like in a trustless, programmable financial world. She also focuses on immigration-related issues, simplifying complex topics around visas, passports, overseas financial planning, and the many practical challenges Indians face while moving or living abroad. Alongside personal finance, Sanchari has a strong understanding of international politics, contemporary and historical conflicts, and global state decisions. She closely tracks how geopolitical developments influence economies, markets, and individual financial choices, bringing together finance and global affairs in her reporting. She began her career as a desk editor, which gave her a strong foundation in news writing. Over time, her interest naturally shifted toward personal finance. Before joining Mint in 2020, she worked DNA, The Times of India, Outlook Money, BloombergQuint, and ETMoney. At Mint, she got an opportunity to expand her coverage to include immigration and geopolitical developments while continuing to closely follow personal finance trends and market movements.As a journalist, she is committed to accuracy, intellectual rigour, and fairness. She is an English Major and her work took her across cities including Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. Living independently from an early age gave her firsthand experience in managing life and money on her own. This practical exposure sparked her strong interest in personal finance. Outside the newsroom, Sanchari is a sports enthusiast who regularly plays lawn tennis and squash. In her younger years, she was also a national-level badminton player.