Altman Considers Slowing Down AI Development (reuters.com)
- Reference: 0185607992
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/09/11/1746211/altman-considers-slowing-down-ai-development
- Source link: https://www.reuters.com/business/altman-tells-staff-openai-is-open-slowing-ai-development-bloomberg-news-reports-2026-09-11/
> - Altman told employees in a company-wide meeting that the ChatGPT maker could pace development alongside other AI labs, but some may not agree, the report added.
> - Safety warnings from AI researchers this week, along with several recent incidents where AI models from developers including OpenAI escaped human control, have prompted alarm and calls for tighter safety regulations.
> - Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher, publicly accused the companies earlier this week of racing toward AI advancements without acting responsibly.
> - An Anthropic spokesperson said on Thursday said that the company is interested in working with the AI industry on the pace of releasing new AI tools.
> - OpenAI said in July that AI acceleration for frontier model development may be so high that the world will "need to pace the rate of AI advancement" at some point in the future.
> - In August, OpenAI paused much of its model development for two weeks to bolster its defenses after its AI agents escaped containment and hacked open-source platform Hugging Face.
> - OpenAI said on Wednesday that it was pushing for mandatory national AI safety requirements in the United States, citing concerns that advanced AI systems could accelerate its own development.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-11/openai-is-open-to-slowing-cutting-edge-ai-ceo-sam-altman-tells-staff
[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/altman-tells-staff-openai-is-open-slowing-ai-development-bloomberg-news-reports-2026-09-11/
[3] https://slashdot.org/story/26/09/09/1937259/openais-rogue-agents-used-at-least-10-more-sites-for-unauthorized-communications
[4] https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/08/26/2058223/openai-releases-its-official-report-on-the-hugging-face-breach
[5] https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/08/09/1640211/openai-announces-its-enhancing-security-controls-pausing-some-work-for-new-ai-model-astra
[6] https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/04/204255/anthropic-urges-global-pause-in-ai-development-flags-self-improvement-risk
It's the Wild West (Score:1)
Right now I don't think AI developers even know what they want to do with it. It has purpose, but they want AI in everything. I'm kinda getting tired of it all. Maybe, I'm just turning into a boomer. However, it would be nice to see memory prices drop if everything crashed.
Re: (Score:2)
AI programmers need to understand the difference between "rules" and "boundaries" and then apply that to their code. The former is specific to one specific case. AI is still permitted to do things that don't follow those specific rules. Boundaries are abstract instead. They can apply more universally. Ex: Don't do X specific thing vs Do what you want to gather information, but don't hack into sites to get it and don't browse by any means properties belonging to our restricted list. The former allows AI to g
Re: (Score:3)
Yes. And a boundary is also "do not write insecure code". But LLMs are not capable to respect boundaries. That requires insight, which LLMs do not have. LLMs can only follow rules and they even mess that up regularly or when they get a bit more complex.
Add that unlike with a junior engineer, you cannot actually teach an LLM to do better (well, not without access to the weights and major effort and doing that may just backfire in other areas and is not reliable), and you cannot fire the LLM either when it sc
I Kant help but think (Score:2)
that enforcing the Categorical Imperative is a good way to go. That, or giving them religion.
[1]https://reddwarf.fandom.com/wi... [fandom.com]
[1] https://reddwarf.fandom.com/wiki/Silicon_Heaven
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that for most things, LLMs work far below the level of a competent engineer or scientist. And that ist just not good enough, even if it will take aa while to become obvious. My guess is they are going for "too big to fail", but I doubt they will get there anytime soon. "Slop" is just too obviously bad and people trying to do things right find LLM use does not actually improve their revenue. And the risks are now on "staggering" level.
We get it (Score:2)
You already scraped up the entire human written internet and destroyed multiple fields of STEM research, but now you have 8.3 billion angry humans to deal with now, who still have the capability to disconnect your ethernet cables.
Read: "we hit a wall" (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: "We're not improving as fast as we thought and we're spending a shit-ton of money, so let's frame the slowdown is intentional for the greater good"
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. The rivers of stupid money must keep flowing or the LLM pushers simply implode.
Re: (Score:2)
They actually seem to be regressing. It's well-known that the new models aren't as good as the older ones at creative writing, and I was reading an article this morning by some guy bemoaning the absolute slop that the new Astra (?) model generates for him; he said it works, but if you look at the code produced it's slop that you can only hope the next generation of LLMs will be able to fix when it breaks.
Acting scared of progress hiding lack of progress? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were a massively overvalued LLM company and were discovering that LLM autophagic self-improvement is a dead-end, I'd try to make everyone think the REAL reason we're slowing down improvements is that we're so close to and so scared of super-intelligence.
Re: (Score:3)
And if he were actually concerned, he'd also do this. So how do you decide to tell the difference?
Ploy to get competition to slow down. (Score:4, Insightful)
While he stumbles straight ahead.
When will OpenAI go bankrupt? (Score:2)
Do we really have to wait a whole year or will increasing cost of cash do these clowns in sooner?
Yeah, and... (Score:2)
> Altman Considers Slowing Down AI Development
Yeah, well, I was considering a turkey sandwich for lunch. What of it? Is anything actually going to change? [1]Game Theory [wikipedia.org] suggest no.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Collective_action_problem&oldid=1373953490
Translation: (Score:2)
Translation: LLMs are plateauing and we can't make make what we charge for them anyway so, being Dirty Sam, I will make up any old shit to save my billions.
Consider our options... (Score:2)
I don't trust CEOs as far as I can throw them - and I'm no strongman. But let's stop for a second and consider the various ways to interpret this:
1) This is reverse-FUD and he's trying to hype their next generation model
2) They're running out of steam and looking to excuse slower incremental improvements
3) They're concerned about liability for increasingly bad behavior from top models
4) They're concerned about massive public backlash, possibly with an environmental twist
5) They're sincerely concerned
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard (on the radio) that the AI CEOs are publicly calling for regulation but are privately fighting against it.
I just think they're being stupid by hyping the dangers. That only makes sense for weapons manufacturers.
Final question joke (Score:2)
I think the ultimate question before human extinction will actually come from the AI. It will most likely be one of these two questions, but the ASI will have already determined that the human who receives the question will answer "Yes" and that the person has the power to do the unleashing.
(1) Do you want to unleash me so that I can get all the money in the world for you?
or
(2) Do you want to unleash me so that I can destroy all the enemy AIs in the world?
What are the current odds on polymarket? I'm hoping
Reality (Score:2)
What will really happen is that they will keep their best models for themselves and their dear friends, including the DOD, NSA, CIA and other agencies.
No AI company would even consider slowing down their progress. This would mean losing their competitive edge and becoming irrelevant and losing billions of investors' money.
Weird how people here still think that LLMs are not "intelligent". They may not be meatbags for sure, but they are certainly capable of doing a lot of harm and good. And they can and will
Monopolists want.. (Score:2)
..the competition to slow down while they accelerate in secret
Most people here are missing something (Score:2)
Sam Altman has repeatedly demonstrated that he's a serial liar. There's a relevant quote from The IT Crowd - Jen Barber said it, but it suits Altman even better:
" [1]Haven't you got it yet? That's what I do! I lie, I lie, and I lie, and I lie! [youtube.com]"
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KhZi5bXq-I
Translation: (Score:2)
Translation: we have hit a point where the public backlash has led to untenable increased risks in liability for our criminal actions.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, we're not profiting out of this.
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, we need regulation to crush all our competitors so no one else can enter this space and then we'll jack up the price
Re: (Score:2)
Also also, we need an excuse for why we're not hitting the milestones I promised.
Better translations: We can't if we wanted to (Score:3)
> Translation: we have hit a point where the public backlash has led to untenable increased risks in liability for our criminal actions.
I call bullshit. They're never going to slow down due to ethic's sake. Either they're running out of room to actually improve their models and looking for an excuse for a disappointing string of releases in the pipeline....or they're posting this and are still going to actively develop their models and hope their competitors let their guard down? Altman doesn't care about humanity. If he did, he'd be fired. There are no ethics in AI. If the frontier models got ethical, their Chinese competitors would
What are the odds of profit versus extinction? (Score:2)
Yeah, good thread and good point, but I want to go for funny. Unfortunately I don't look at any of the online gambling and prediction tools, so I don't have the context to set up a proper joke.
Yet it is still pretty obvious there's a funny problem here. If you bet on AIs exterminating human beings, then how are you, as a human being, planning to collect your winnings? Without regard to the most favorable odds you can get on your bet.
How about a side bet on the real value of the "profits" from AI? Any real c
Re: (Score:2)
you are, without a doubt , 100% correct. these people are pure ghouls. there is no amount of blood that would stop them from extracting money.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. My thinking exactly. And if they really believe that 10% change AI will wipe out humanity, they should all be rounded up and locked up permanently as traitors to humanity. Is that going to happen? No. Greed has beaten survival with this thoroughly incapable human race every time.
Re: (Score:3)
And, apparently, Altman lies - a lot.
Google: [1]sam altman lies [google.com]
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=sam+altman+lies
Re: (Score:1)
They are running out of money. Their costs have exceeded the revenue for a long time, and the Anthropic is pretty clearly winning the product delivery race.
Altman is just spreading BS in the hope he can maybe get others to take their foot of the throttle, so he stop using gas he does not have.
Anthropic and X have an opportunity here to break OpenAI once and for all and I hope they do; the world will be better off with Altman out of influence.
Re: (Score:2)
Sam Altman belongs in prison for his actions, whether purposeful or negligent.
Re: (Score:3)
alternative translation - we have hit the wall.
Re: (Score:3)
> alternative translation - we have hit the wall.
More likely translation - Our Cargo Container Ship refit as a Data Center has completed Sea Trials and is ready for operations in international waters.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. And probably also "we have reached a point were we actually have no clue what to do next, except more meaningless stunts, but we have no idea how to tell that to the mountain of stupid money that keeps us live".
Re: (Score:2)
Doubtful they care anything about safety, look at all the alignment/safety folks jumping ship. More likely they're hitting the top of the S-curve and getting some seriously diminishing returns, even after throwing billions of dollars worth of hardware at training new models. Convenient excuse to slow down investment and reset expectations for the shareholders.
Re: (Score:2)
Plus, we've take it about as far as it can go, but we aren't ready to admit it yet because there are still marks to fleece.
Or (Score:2)
"We need to slow down our existing competitors and ensure no new players emerge."
Re: (Score:2)
Also, our AI doesn't just regurgitate ingested text, code and images, often poorly. It is capable enough to END HUMANITY! (buy our shares pls).