Anthropic urges global pause in AI development, flags ‘self-improvement’ risk

Anthropic is calling for top artificial intelligence labs to weigh slowing the pace of development, suggesting that AI systems are advancing so rapidly that they may soon be able to improve themselves without human intervention in ways that could pose significant societal risks.

The ability to slow global AI development would “likely be a good thing,” the company said Thursday in a blog post that disclosed internal data documenting how quickly its most advanced models are improving.

The post, written by the head of its internal research institute and a company co-founder, noted that model advances appear to be on a path toward “recursive self-improvement,” when AI systems can improve on their own without human intervention. Some AI insiders have seen that threshold as a potential marker of danger and enormous societal upheaval.

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