Trump, Beijing push back on Amodei's AI slowdown plan

The pushback arrived within days of Amodei's September 12 essay, 'We Must Pace the Frontier,' which itself allowed model training and technical progress to continue. The disagreement is therefore less about halting work than about who, if anyone, would enforce limits and on what terms.

That question is sharpened by the fact that two of Amodei's most prominent peers endorsed him. Sam Altman committed OpenAI to outside evaluators with access comparable to that of employees, and Elon Musk wrote that 'Dario is right.' The endorsements suggest the proposal's softest edge — outside review of safety practices — may be the most adoptable piece, even as governments reject the broader frame.

A company that slows work alone could give rivals more time to advance, which helps explain Amodei's call for government coordination and his request for narrow antitrust waivers for certain discussions. Trump and Xi have a meeting planned for September 24, with AI governance expected to feature, though the scope of those talks is uncertain. Amodei has identified biological weapons restrictions and testing before release as more realistic areas for agreement, but even a testing commitment would need clear terms about which systems it covers, who conducts the tests, and how compliance can be checked. Whether the pledges amount to constraints or merely signals appears likely to depend on those specifics.