Post finds AI labs kept racing despite slowdown calls

Six weeks after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei called on the artificial intelligence industry to "slow down," and two of his main rivals publicly agreed, the leading labs have not eased their pace. A Washington Post analysis found that Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceX have all released new, more capable models since then. Anthropic has also told prospective investors it plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars building more powerful systems, the Post reported.washingtonpost.com+1

A public pact, then an IPO

Amodei's September 12 essay, "We Must Pace the Frontier," said, "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models," according to a letter from New York City Comptroller Mark Levine. "Dario is right," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted on X. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman followed with "I agree with Dario," the Post reported. Altman also said OpenAI would match Amodei's proposal to give independent evaluators employee-like access, according to The Daily Star.inquirer.com+2

On Monday, October 26, Anthropic filed for what could be the largest initial public offering ever, AP reported. The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker "ANT," and it reported $16.3 billion in revenue for the first half of 2026, according to TechCrunch. "We anticipate making significant investments for the foreseeable future, including in compute and infrastructure," the filing said, as quoted by the Post. OpenAI plans to hold its own IPO in the coming months.pbs.org+2

Growing scrutiny

On Tuesday, October 27, Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent Amodei a letter asking him to square the filing's warning that Anthropic's models could "pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity" with the push to go public. She asked for answers by November 3, CFO Dive reported. Connor Leahy of the nonprofit ControlAI told the Post that companies should be judged by what they do, not what they say. "Watch the hands, not the mouth," he said.cfodive.com

According to the Post, Malo Bourgon of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute said Anthropic's relationship with AI safety researchers is "slowly deteriorating." Critics have also attacked a draft federal bill circulated by Anthropic lobbyists, arguing it would override state AI laws.

Labs point to safeguards

The labs say they have taken some steps. According to the Post, Anthropic has started letting outside researchers into its offices to monitor its development work, and both Anthropic and OpenAI have sometimes paused work after models behaved unexpectedly. OpenAI pointed to an October 23 blog post describing its monitoring work as "a core part of responsibly pacing the development of our frontier models."

Amodei defended his approach in a 2,000-word post. "Our strategy has always been what I've called the 'race to the top,'" he wrote, according to the Post. "By showing how it's possible to build the technology responsibly, we can raise the bar for the entire industry."inquirer.com