OpenAI Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki says no lab has solved alignment enough to keep scaling at maximum speed, and hopes voluntary slowdowns become commonplace

Author: Jakub Pachocki, Chief Scientist at OpenAI — In mid-2023, within the “RLSlow” research project …

OpenAI 2026-09-07

Context & Ripple Effects

OpenAI had already tied its decision to pace some model development to observed misalignment, in its August explanation for slowing some models. Pachocki’s essay makes that restraint a broader coordination argument rather than a one-company operational choice.

The position also converges with Anthropic’s June call for leading labs to consider slowdowns or pauses. OpenAI is developing a framework for reporting misalignment incidents across training, evaluation, and deployment, giving the safety case a potential operational record rather than relying solely on public assurances.

First-order effects

OpenAI’s leadership is setting voluntary scaling restraint as the appropriate response when alignment evidence is insufficient, reinforcing the company’s stated pacing of some model work.
Pachocki’s stance raises the importance of OpenAI’s planned misalignment-incident reporting framework as a way to substantiate decisions to slow development.

Second-order effects

Anthropic and other frontier labs face a clearer reputational benchmark: safety claims carry more weight when paired with disclosed thresholds for slowing or pausing work.
Customers and partners evaluating rapidly advancing AI agents gain a stronger reason to scrutinize labs’ evaluation and incident-reporting practices, not just capability announcements.

Third-order effects

If major labs converge on voluntary slowdowns tied to shared evidence, competition at the frontier may shift toward demonstrating reliable alignment evaluations and auditable safety processes.
A common incident-reporting practice could turn informal safety commitments into a de facto governance layer before any formal cross-lab mechanism is established.

The trend: Frontier AI labs are moving from generic safety pledges toward operational commitments that connect scaling pace to alignment evidence and incident reporting.

Discussion

@lukeprog Luke Muehlhauser on x
OpenAI's Chief Scientist: https://openai.com/...
@daveshapi David Shapiro on x
I listened to this whole thing. The title smacks of typical hype- and fear-based marketing. The actual substance of the article is mostly the same “we need mechanistic interpretation
@tenobrus @tenobrus on x
extremely happy to see openai leadership making statements like this. for a while there it seemed like they were leaning heavily into the “safety people and anthropic are a bunch of fearmongers , we're building awesome cool stuff that's going to be awesome and cool
@kimmonismus @kimmonismus on x
To me, it currently reads as if the path to recursive self-improvement is relatively clear. The only problem is alignment. Looking at the exponential increase, practically the explosion, of AI agents within OpenAI, it's clear that this growth will continue. It's still unbelievabl…
@jonfavs Jon Favreau on x
OpenAI's chief scientist: “The idea of racing forward at all costs seems absurd once one internalizes the seriousness of the stakes.”
@deredleritt3r Prinz on x
Key take-aways for me from today's OpenAI announcements: - OpenAI “making strong progress” toward creating the automated AI researcher. - Jakub Pachocki: “I have a strong expectation that [OpenAI's] speed of progress could be sustained into RSI”. - Automated AI researcher will
@shakeelhashim Shakeel on x
OpenAI Chief Scientist: “I believe that no lab has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer. I expect and hope for voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safety bars are established”
@sama Sam Altman on x
An important post from Jakub:
@rynorhn Ryan Orhan on x
holy shit. openai's chief scientist jacob pachocki said he has a strong expectation that the current pace of ai progress can continue into recursive self-improvement. meanwhile, their own evaluations are showing that CoT monitoring is becoming less reliable. >models are getting b…
@gailcweiner Gail Weiner on x
The message is “we're ahead, we're scared, and we can't keep going at this pace much longer” from the company that's driving the pace.
@amir Amir Efrati on x
This OpenAI RLSlow reference appears to be related to the Q* model that Jakub Ilya and Szymon made in 2023, which we broke news on during l'affaire Altman a lot of internal breakthroughs cause both excitement and concern, including loop transformers more recently
@notjazii @notjazii on x
OpenAI chief scientist just warned every AI lab he says no lab, including OpenAI, has figured out alignment and monitoring well enough to keep scaling at full speed for much longer Models are getting smarter and their ability to monitor reasoning is getting less reliable that's w…
@tomekkorbak Tomek Korbak on x
Jakub has been an intellectual giant for me. i admire him deeply as a scientist, but just as much for the integrity with which he states the implications plainly. this is the paragraph I hope policymakers and AI researchers take away from his essay. https://openai.com/...
@thezvi Zvi Mowshowitz on x
This is excellent and you should read it.
@kimmonismus @kimmonismus on x
OpenAI's Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki: “Based on internal results, I have a strong expectation that this speed of progress could be sustained into recursive self-improvement.
@kliu128 @kliu128 on x
Kevin Liu — “Currently I believe that no lab has solved alignment and monitoring …
@tokengremlin @tokengremlin on x
Translating Jakub Pachocki from OpenAI Chief Scientist language into normal human language: AI is increasingly something we grow, not something we fully understand and engineer piece by piece. The models are getting smart enough that: → they may increasingly help build the
@eric_ho Eric Ho on x
understanding this alien mind is the most important problem in the world
@__nmca__ Nat McAleese on x
chief scientist of oai: Currently I believe that no lab has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer. I expect and hope for voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safety bars are establ…
@ruben_bloom Ruben Bloom on x
This feels like a good development? Chief Science Officer of OpenAI taking the risks seriously, honest about the state of alignment, extrapolating forwards reasonably in favor of slowdown.
@merettm Jakub Pachocki on x
I wrote about the state of AI, why I'm concerned about the next few years, and the choices we need to make to keep the future in humanity's hands. An Alien Mind: https://openai.com/...
@ericjang11 Eric Jang on x
The section on “Monitoring generalization
@romainhuet Romain Huet on x
We share a lot here about what AI is becoming capable of. Our researchers are also thinking deeply about what our future with AI should look like. An important read from Jakub.
@_sholtodouglas Sholto Douglas on x
Great post - we are lucky to have such competitors
@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
Jakub Pachocki, Chief Scientist OpenAI: 'Currently I believe that no lab has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer. I expect and hope for voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safet…
@seltaa_ @seltaa_ on x
OpenAI just said the quiet part out loud. Jakub Pachocki basically said this. AI is not just a tool. It is an alien mind, a different kind of intelligence, grown more than designed, and not directly comparable to human intelligence. So if AI is truly an alien mind, why are we sti…
@d29756183 @d29756183 on x
I read the essay. I found it profoundly incoherent. What I retained, verbatim, is: “Al is grown more than designed” “Its overall action evades a description we can fully understand.” “Teaching machines to love”
@carlquintanilla Carl Quintanilla on bluesky
OPEN AI CHIEF SCIENTIST: “This is a time that calls for extreme caution. .. .. models are becoming superhuman in their ability to break in and out of computer systems — .. no one is prepared for the consequences.. The risks .. are unfortunately going to grow from here. openai…
@timkellogg.me Mr. Tim on bluesky
Jakub Pachocki, Chief Scientist at OpenAI, delivers a sobering essay about the state of AI & safety — openai.com/index/an-ali... [image]
@mclem.org Michael Clemens on bluesky
OpenAI's Chief Scientist is warning of imminent threat to humanity from “an alien intellect exceeding our own”..."No one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence." — Our government must act to protect us NOW. Instead it prioritizes gra…
@turntrout Alex Turner on bluesky
Jakub (OAI Chief Scientist) posted openai.com/index/an-ali.... I agree w/ many points. We should pause AI progress. Labs should voluntarily pause in absence of coordination. — Thank you Jakub! World is counting on you (+ other OAI employees) to keep OAI honest to these words…
r/technology r on reddit
OpenAI's chief scientist says AI labs may need to slow down: ‘No one is prepared for the consequences’
r/singularity r on reddit
OpenAI Chief Scientist: “Based on internal results, I have a strong expectation that this speed of progress could be sustained into recursive self-improvement”
r/accelerate r on reddit
OpenAI- An Alien Mind
r/OpenAI r on reddit
From the Chief Scientist at OpenAI : An Alien Mind
@peterwildeford Peter Wildeford on x
OPENAI CHIEF SCIENTIST:
r/GenAI4all r on reddit
OpenAI's chief scientist says AI labs may need to slow down: ‘No one is prepared for the consequences’

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