OpenAI and Anthropic face tensions over efforts to slow AI progress: Report

Anthropic and OpenAI are pushing to slow AI development following safety warnings, but coordinating the efforts is creating tensions within the companies.

By coordinating efforts to constrain the pace of AI development, the bosses of Anthropic and OpenAI may have sparked tensions inside the two companies over security and other concerns, as per the Financial Times. The incident has highlighted the challenges of coordinating efforts towards a single aim.

Staff at the makers of Claude and ChatGPT are rushing to implement recommendations from their respective chief executives, Dario Amodei and Sam Altman to slow AI’s rate of progress. These coordinated efforts come after a series of warnings from AI researchers.

Chris Lehane, OpenAI global policy chief, told reporters on Tuesday that OpenAI has been coordinating efforts and working with Anthropic and Google DeepMind on AI safety for weeks. Lehane admitted that the companies had been communicating for several weeks regarding AI safety.

Some, including Altman, have noted that such talks could put the companies at risk of violating antitrust law if the coordination is found to suppress competition. Amodei’s essay has also proposed a government waiver allowing such safety coordination, but Lehane has reportedly said that the firms don’t need one.

In the wake of AI companies scrambling to coordinate efforts, it would be fair to highlight that Demis Hassabis was one of the first AI experts to highlight the need for the US to establish a new standards body to act as an AI watchdog. He had indicated the need for the unit to be able to screen the world’s most advanced models and coordinate industry-wide slowdowns if the dangers progressed further.