Anthropic Scared, Calls for Global Freeze on AI Advances

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Anthropic is calling for a global “pause” on AI development, claiming that the technology is nearing a point where it can spiral out of human control. 

In a lengthy blog post published Thursday, the world’s most valuable AI startup made the case that its Claude family of models were on the path to achieving “recursive self-improvement,” or the ability to improve themselves on their own, a key hypothetical tipping point that could lead to the creation of powerful AIs capable of operating outside human interests and harming society.

We’re not at that point yet, Anthropic stresses, but it “could come sooner than most institutions are prepared for.”

“We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology,” the company wrote in the post.

It added that “a meaningful slowdown or pause would require multiple well-resourced labs at or near the frontier, in multiple countries, agreeing to stop under the same conditions,” and admitted that this would be challenging to enforce.

“Training runs are far easier to conceal than missile silos,” it wrote.

For Anthropic to call for a pause now is convenient. In the past few months, it leap-frogged OpenAI to become the world’s most valuable AI company with a $1 trillion valuation, and its models are now generally viewed as the best in the field, especially at coding tasks. If the industry were to hit the brakes now, it would cement Anthropic’s dominance.

Not everyone was buying Anthropic’s claims. Prominent AI critic Gary Marcus called the company’s lengthy post a “bait and switch.”

“Anthropic is trying to strike terror into everyone’s hearts (‘full recursive self-improvement also might increase the risks of humans losing control over AI systems’) but all they have really shown is just faster coding — entirely under human control,” Marcus wrote on his Substack. “A faster coding tool will probably not end the world.”

Anthropic has long tried to paint itself as the ethical and deeply concerned adult in the room. A cornerstone of its mythology is that CEO Dario Amodei abstained from unleashing a revolutionary AI model back in 2022 because he was too concerned about safety, and let OpenAI get all the glory when it released ChatGPT months later instead. 

Two months ago, in a rehashed sequel to this foundational company lore, Anthropic announced a new model called Mythos — but made a show of not releasing to the public, claiming it was powerful enough to break into “every major operating system and every major web browser.” 

But its act is ringing hollower than ever. Earlier this year, Anthropic famously clashed with the Pentagon over concerns that its AI systems could be used in autonomous weaponry and in the mass surveillance of US citizens. Later, it emerged that Claude was being used to help select strike targets in Iran.

Amid its blowout with the military, Anthropic also dropped a safety pledge that was arguably the venture’s entire raison d’etre: to stop training an AI system if it couldn’t guarantee it had proper safety guardrails in place.

Further underscoring Anthropic’s hypocrisy, University College London professor Steven Murdoch cited recent reporting from the Financial Times revealing that Anthropic is helping the US National Security Agency use its Mythos model so it can wage cyberwarfare against potential enemies like China and Iran.

“Anthropic might give the impression of being warm and fuzzy, but their definition of AI safety is narrow,” Murdoch told The Guardian. “Supporting US authorities in the development of offensive capabilities has never been something they have spoken against.”

Regardless of whether Anthropic genuinely thinks it has a remotely realistic shot at pulling off a global pause — or if this is yet another ploy to boost its safety-minded image — it’s vowing to pursue further action.

“In the coming months, we will organize conversations where policymakers, researchers, civil society, and other AI companies can help answer some of the questions this piece raises, especially around full recursive self-improvement and how to create better options for coordination and deliberation,” the company wrote. “We’ll publish what comes out of it.” 

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IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Read the 9/11 Interviews

Watch the Interviews