Chinese Media Rebukes Anthropic CEO's Call to Slow AI Development

China's state-run Global Times has sharply criticised Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei after he called for slowing the pace of artificial intelligence development over fears of losing control of advanced systems.

Experts quoted in a Global Times editorial described Amodei's suggestions as "inappropriate," "hostile" and "groundless." They argued that such claims are driven by commercial interests and competitive concerns, and risk turning AI safety into a geopolitical, zero-sum issue rather than a global challenge that requires cooperation among major AI powers.

Xiang Ligang, a veteran telecom and tech policy observer, told the publication that Amodei's proposals seek to portray China's legitimate development in AI as a threat and further fuel confrontation between China and the United States in the field. He noted that Amodei acknowledges global efforts to pace AI development would ultimately require cooperation with China, yet simultaneously advocates restrictions on chips, computing power and models to slow China's AI development while explicitly seeking to widen the US technological lead.

Liu Shaoshan, director of Embodied AI at the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, said the issue has moved beyond AI safety, placing AI safety, national security, industrial competition and commercial interests into the same framework. Once AI is portrayed as a technology that will determine national competition, national security and even the future of civilisation, an AI company is no longer seen as an ordinary tech company but as "strategic infrastructure," he said. This directly increases its policy importance, raises industry barriers and boosts its valuation.

Liu added that the China threat narrative by certain US AI industry insiders serves a dual purpose: it supports US geopolitical competition while amplifying the strategic value of some frontier AI companies and the rationale behind their valuations.

The Global Times also highlighted China's growing open-source AI ecosystem, reporting that the country's open-source large models have recorded more than 10 billion cumulative downloads, creating new opportunities for global innovation and cooperation.

At the BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Chinese President Xi Jinping underlined the importance of cooperation on emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, calling for a people-centred approach and a global AI governance framework based on consensus. He proposed five initiatives aimed at deepening BRICS cooperation in areas including AI, trade and investment, digital industries, intelligent manufacturing and science and technology talent development. Under the AI initiative, China proposed establishing a BRICS AI open-source community, along with a BRICS digital ecosystem cloud platform and greater cooperation in digital skills and technology.

Over the weekend, Amodei advocated slowing down the pace of AI model development, warning that if unchecked it could outrun human ability to control such systems. In a detailed essay, he wrote that AI has been advancing drastically faster since roughly this summer, driven primarily by its growing ability to build the next generation of AI — a dynamic called recursive self-improvement that is starting to happen across the industry, including at Anthropic. Left unchecked, he said, it could outrun the ability to understand and control these systems, and so must be pursued very carefully, if at all.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft boss Satya Nadella and Google's Demis Hassabis have also backed suggestions that advanced artificial intelligence systems must remain strictly under human supervision while creators pursue measured progress to guarantee safety.

The developments follow an announcement by Jacob Coxon, a researcher associated with Anthropic, who publicly declared he was quitting the industry over fears that the company and its competitors were racing to build systems they would be unable to control.