Anthropic and OpenAI are already free to “pace the frontier” and should do so for business reasons, instead of first demanding a preferred regulatory framework

Dario has written that we need to “pace the frontier,” and Sam has agreed. People may be surprised by my response: go ahead.

@davidsacks 2026-09-14 David Sacks

Context & Ripple Effects

Anthropic and OpenAI had already publicly backed the “Pacing the Frontier” initiative, moving the debate from abstract safety principles toward commitments by the labs themselves. Anthropic then said it would give outside evaluators permanent, employee-like access, while OpenAI said it would adopt the same approach in its own evaluator-access commitment.

David Sacks’s response frames those commitments as choices the companies can make under existing conditions rather than as grounds for a preferred regulatory regime. The distinction matters because it puts the commercial and competitive costs of restraint back on the labs advocating it.

First-order effects

Anthropic and OpenAI face pressure to match their pacing rhetoric with voluntary operating decisions and independently verifiable safety practices, rather than treating regulatory change as a prerequisite.
Sacks’s argument gives policymakers a basis to separate support for voluntary restraint from support for rules that would formalize or protect that restraint.

Second-order effects

Competitors can characterize self-imposed pacing as a strategic choice rather than an industry-wide obligation; Senator John Cornyn similarly argued that competitors, including foreign rivals, would not necessarily slow development.
Independent evaluator access becomes a more consequential differentiator: it offers Anthropic and OpenAI a way to substantiate safety claims without waiting for a formal oversight framework.

Third-order effects

If major labs continue pairing voluntary deployment limits with third-party access, frontier-AI governance may develop through auditable company commitments before any common regulatory framework emerges.
The resulting divide would be between firms willing to incur the business cost of demonstrable safeguards and firms that compete on speed, making verification—not broad safety pledges—the durable point of comparison.

The trend: Frontier-AI governance is shifting toward voluntary, externally verifiable lab commitments, with competitive incentives determining how far individual companies will go.

Discussion

NewsMax.com Sam Barron on x
Former Trump Adviser Backs Self-Imposed AI Slowdown
@dowdedward Edward Dowd on x
Excellent framing here!
@johncornyn Senator John Cornyn on x
I agree with @DavidSacks If developers of AI want to slow down development of their product they are free to do so. One thing is for sure: their competitors won't, including our nation's adversaries.
@stevesi Steven Sinofsky on x
Companies should be careful about what they so aggressively campaign for.
@hesamation @hesamation on x
DAMN... Sacks cooked hard with this.
@brianroemmele Brian Roemmele on x
A brilliant take on the Dario AI Theater. Thank you for clarity and not rubber stamps.
@womandefiner Paul on x
“Pretending you need anyone else's permission” This is how you get your AI company nationalized by the way. The second one of these guys go off the rails their company is going to be US property.
@stevesi Steven Sinofsky on x
Please read this.
@linamkhan Lina Khan on x
Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products. We shouldn't let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there's no AI exemption from laws already on the books —…
@vkhosla Vinod Khosla on x
Hard position as not getting behind China is even more critical. Even if they agree to slow down I would not trust them. Advanced AI in Chinese hands is far more dangerous than advanced AI
@jason @jason on x
🔥
@highyieldharry @highyieldharry on x
I like this David Sacks take ultimately. If you both agree to slow down, then slow down. You can just do it right now, no one is stopping you.
@tvietor08 Tommy Vietor on x
Corporations are not and will never be altruistic, which is why we need the government to regulate new and dangerous technologies. The problem is David and Silicon Valley elites who put profits over everyone else's safety.
@gphummer Grant Hummer on x
Translation: our gross margins are getting competed down to 0 by open source models and our capex burn rate is too high. Let's maintain our margins with regulatory capture, ban open source models, and slow down the capex arms race. All with a virtue signaling cherry on top.
@garymarcus @garymarcus on x
Gary Marcus — “stop pretending you need anyone else's permission.
@levie Aaron Levie on x
“Pacing
@guimarin Michael Guimarin on x
Thank God Sacks is calling their bluff.
@martin_casado @martin_casado on x
The fairest (and simplest) view of the situation is that the labs are stuck between the doomers and the government, and trying to navigate both. The worry of course is that they won't be able to control either, and their ability to do so is eroding with each move.
@armanddoma Armand Domalewski on x
kind of surreal for big companies to be begging to be regulated and for the government to be like “nope”
@vijayshekhar Vijay Shekhar Sharma on x
My favorite comment on the today's development. 🤝
@deanwball Dean W. Ball on x
David Sacks: “the easiest way not to build superintelligence is for [OpenAI and Anthropic] to agree not to build it.” Sherman Antitrust Act, Section 1 (15 U.S.C. 1):
@natpurser Nat Purser on x
i agree that antitrust enforcers could do more under existing laws to challenge deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive practices in ai markets now. but this doesn't really answer the live question: how can competing labs coordinate to slow down the race dynamic she describes here…
@greenplusane Russ Greene on x
“China is very unlikely to join a global agreement” I disagree. China is very likely to join a global agreement, but extremely unlikely to comply.
@clairlemon Claire Lehmann on x
Have had issues with Sacks' positions in the past—but this seems reasonable https://x.com/...
@daniel_koss Daniel Koss on x
David Sacks rarely misses. Currently the smartest voice around AI regulation. It's all so logically and obviously laid out in this post. Let's see what they do and their actions will speak louder than all of their words.
@jonfavs Jon Favreau on x
This one's an all-timer, put it in a capsule for the next civilization to find: “The market already punishes models that behave in unpredictable or unauthorized ways.”
@matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
Correct
@geiger_capital @geiger_capital on x
Babe, wake up... Sacks is destroying the fake altruistic nerds.
@healthranger @healthranger on x
David Sacks is absolutely correct on this point: Hey Dario, if you want to slow down, go ahead and slow the F down. Just don't try to enforce a regulatory cartel on everybody else.
@sethmagaziner Seth Magaziner on x
This is the White House AI tsar spinning out because the leaders of the largest AI companies are admitting that their technology is dangerous and needs to be regulated. Regulate them! This is your job! What an epic failure of leadership, and the consequences could be devastating
@matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
And here we go, Lina Khan with the obvious point that these defective products may foster liability for the AI firms who release them, and that discussions new legal regimes are something of a distraction.
@dkokotajlo Daniel Kokotajlo on x
We'll be able to tell if this is regulatory capture or not by whether the pace of progress at the frontier actually slows down (which would allow other companies to catch up). If a year from now we look at the trendlines in A\ and OpenAI capabilities progress towards recursive se…
@patrickmoorhead Patrick Moorhead on x
Leave it up to David as a voice of reason.
@deanwball Dean W. Ball on x
I'm going to delete this tweet and post screenshots here for posterity. I stand by the argument but we shouldn't fight. This is too important for squealy arguing. I am going to choose to see David's OP as an olive branch and operate under that assumption. TYFYATTM!
@yuntiandeng Yuntian Deng on x
I feel like this is always one-way preaching. Anthropic comes across as incredibly arrogant to me. You keep telling us what responsible AI development should be, and now even laying out a plan for how the entire field should proceed. But do you actually listen to what other peopl…
@adamjohnsonchi Adam Johnson on x
Seems like there's a pretty clear way to neutralize allegations of regulatory capture: AI firms can agree to zero lobbying and any group they fund—including astroturf safety orgs— having no say in regulation. And they only be consulted by Congress for technical questions.
@ajitpai Ajit Pai on x
Step 1: look up the Kingsbury Commitment of 1913. Step 2: ponder the government-backed telephone monopoly that followed. Step 3: ask yourself which sector features more innovation and competition—landline telephones from 1913-1982 or wireless from 1993-present.
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
.@GaryMarcus is boosting @DavidSacks Guess it's official: AI has pushed us to the end times.
@benitoz @benitoz on x
Sacks called their bluff Always been about reg capture Dario on 60 mins tomorrow night.
@kevinnbass Kevin Bass on x
Investors in Anthropic founded Open Philanthropy, the leading org promoting AI Doom They have a stake in regulation on AI that excludes competitors OP is the major funder of Tarbell Tarbell Fellows penned many articles on AI, shaping perceptions 1-in-3 in The Dispatch 1-in-5 in T…
@lansification Lan on x
“anthropic is using the same playbook religious institutions have been using for centuries” “you will all die. and because i can protect you, you must follow me, you must do what i say” “this is the same psychological concept”
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
🎺 I am tired of the cosplay and am going to blunt. 🎺 Most AI doesn't threaten to cause extinction, or even mass cybercrime. The main kind of AI we need to worry about is general purpose AI agents that are hooked up to the internet. Most of them are unreliable, unable to systemati…
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
Very well said
@beffjezos @beffjezos on x
TRVTH NVKE
@scobleizer Robert Scoble on x
I am cheering from the cheap seats. Can't reshare this too many times.
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
12 years ago
@mustafasuleyman Mustafa Suleyman on x
This is such a straightforward and commonsense view: the purpose of technology is to serve humanity and accelerate human flourishing. Any technology that doesn't achieve that is a failure, and should be rejected. We're not yet at that point. But its right to start preparing for t…
@benjamindekr Benjamin De Kraker on x
Buried at the very end of this long post: Microsoft CEO Nadella teases “first party MAI (Microsoft AI) models that we'll publish tomorrow”
@zerohedge @zerohedge on x
“The key is that this cannot be controlled by a handful of entities, but must have broad representation across the ecosystem, countries, and fields, including academia.” - Spot on
@paradislabs Paradis on x
This is not what Anthropic or OpenAI want. “Every organization should be able to build...without becoming dependent on any one model provider.” On the flip side, this is why open source needs to win.
@mikebenzcyber Mike Benz on x
And literally right on cue, 12 minutes after I posted the tweet above, the CEO of Microsoft posted this 😂 https://x.com/...
@martin_casado @martin_casado on x
“We also need to accelerate and spread the benefits of AI” <— yes!
@chrisgpt Chris on x
“that underlies our own first party MAI models that we'll publish tomorrow for public consultation.” Microsoft dropping tomorrow !
@prathkum Pratham on x
We don't have a real definition of “under human control.
@bookwormengr @bookwormengr on x
Very reasonable.
@peterwildeford Peter Wildeford on x
Satya (Microsoft CEO) joins team pacing
@erichorvitz Eric Horvitz on x
“Any pursuit of superintelligence has to be grounded in the core principle that if the AI we build is not helping humanity and under human control, it's not worth pursuing.”
@thejefflutz Jeff Lutz on x
Based Satya
@demishassabis Demis Hassabis on x
Dario's essay points towards the right path forward. The details need working through, but the direction is correct for meeting this critical moment. This is also why we recently put out our proposal for an industry-wide standards body for frontier AI. https://x.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@kevinnbass Dario is right that there should be some oversight. Peer review of AI by competitors is the right way to start this off.
@mehreenzahra Mehreen Zahra-Malik on x
Perhaps the most frightening part of Amodei's essay is what he says about geopolitics. The US may need to slow frontier AI for safety but cannot safely do so if China keeps accelerating. The race itself becomes the trap: everyone may understand the danger while no one can afford …
@rynorhn Ryan Orhan on x
the “ai has no real business model” argument is aging remarkably fast. anthropic is already reporting gross margins above 80% and expects two consecutive profitable quarters. and we're still ridiculously early in the adoption curve.
@stocksavvyshay Shay Boloor on x
Anthropic is starting to show that AI scale can translate into real operating leverage as it reportedly heads toward a second straight profitable quarter. That comes as ARR hit $65B by July and gross margins topped 80% before partner revenue share and training costs.
@benitoz @benitoz on x
And that's why Dario didn't sign the open models letter with everyone else Bro wants to keep his margins up and reg capture
@rohanpaul_ai Rohan Paul on x
FT just reported Anthropic expects a second straight quarter of adjusted operating profit before its planned IPO. Anthropic had already posted positive adjusted operating income in Q2 after revenue topped $11.5B, which is 14X the previoius quarter of last year. ARR reached $65B b…
@thulynnn @thulynnn on x
Innovating accounting right there! Gross margin before counting cost
@jukan05 Jukan on x
“Anthropic's gross margins are above 80% before accounting for revenue shared with distribution partners, including Amazon, and the cost of training its models.” Wow.
@bubbleboi Bubble Boi on x
Makes sense and inline with my estimate. If you just looked at the roofline of a DGX system and used their token cost as an input you got this number roughly correct nothing fancy to it. Deepseek I calculated having north of 90% and that's with their api costs too which is crazy.…
@mfinkle Mark Finkle on bluesky
Anthropic boasts of being “profitable” by using a definition that ignores the billions spent on model training. — The push to slow down the pace of AI helps their balance sheet. If they tap the brakes, the short shelf-life of current models extends, allowing them to cash in on…
r/singularity r on reddit
Anthropic tells investors it will be profitable for second straight quarter
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
You can't have a real slowdown and be a total China hawk. If you are truly committed to the slowdown, you have to make a deal.
@berniesanders Bernie Sanders on x
President Trump prides himself on being a great deal maker. Well. He now has the opportunity to make “the deal of the century.
@choblin29 @choblin29 on x
🚨Holy Shit. President Trump has now officially rejected Dario Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk's call to slow frontier AI. Speaking in Ireland today, Trump said the US cannot risk losing its lead over China, said guardrails are possible, and dismissed parts of the safety push as …
@teortaxestex @teortaxestex on x
oh wow. Golden King vs the God-Builder Guild, who wins?
r/RepublicadeChile r on reddit
Donald Trump rechaza frenar avance de la inteligencia artificial
r/politics r on reddit
Donald Trump rejects calls from tech bosses for an AI slowdown
r/technology r on reddit
Donald Trump rejects calls from tech bosses for AI slowdown
r/MU_Stock r on reddit
Trump Downplays AI Concerns as CEOs Call for Slowing Pace
r/politics r on reddit
Trump Downplays AI Concerns as CEOs Call for Slowing Technology
@mattduss Matt Duss on x
China's govt exerts massive regulatory control over its AI industry, the idea that we'd fall behind by doing the same is just corporate propaganda. The key question is whether we are ready to really break from neoliberalism and assert our democratic right to discipline capital.
@mehdirhasan Mehdi Hasan on x
Why did this man become a congressman let alone speaker? He literally never wants Congress to do anything about anything
@atrupar Aaron Rupar on x
Mike Johnson punts on oversight of AI companies: “Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier to know the ins and outs of it”
@atrupar Aaron Rupar on x
Buttigieg:
@politico @politico on x
Tech companies must be responsible for AI safety, Mike Johnson says, not Congress https://www.politico.com/...
@amy_siskind Amy Siskind on x
Listening to Mike Johnson, and he is clueless and incapable of doing anything in AI. Let's face it, it's going to take having Democrats in control of Congress to put up any guardrails. Republicans are hopeless, they just do not know how to govern.
@darrigomelanie Melanie D'Arrigo on x
Republican AI deregulation and letting AI CEOs self-regulate their industries is how we ended up in this moment. Solving this humanity-ending level threat shouldn't be left to the people who created the problem.
@daniel_271828 @daniel_271828 on x
This strikes me as a pretty severe mischaracterization of Johnson's quote from the article. What he actually said was:
@atrupar Aaron Rupar on x
Mike Johnson on AI leaders calling for regulation of the industry:
@imdenixsol Denis on x
sam altman says too much ai power in one company is dangerous fair. what power would @OpenAI actually give up? does “team humanity” get a say, or just a monthly bill?
@harshmadhusudan Harsh Gupta Madhusudan on x
This is beginning to sound more like NPT/CTBT debates. India must push sovereign AI models much faster, and ignore those who have directly or indirectly been American or Chinese proxies.
@blue_beba_ @blue_beba_ on x
@sama Translation: We're afraid China's open source will take our customers, so we're running this whole circus. 🤡
@_nathancalvin Nathan Calvin on x
“For example, at OpenAI we now formulate explicit safety cases in advance of frontier reinforcement learning runs we expect to significantly increase capability
@zephyr_z9 @zephyr_z9 on x
He is basically saying that we may not see the 1M Vera Rubin training run in 2027, but we will get the 500k Vera Rubin training run next year 15%-25% of their compute will be dedicated to monitoring models & alignment research “When we talk about “pacing”, we do not mean “stoppin…
@rynorhn Ryan Orhan on x
“no amount of american competitive pressure should justify recklessness.
@jeremystaf72221 @jeremystaf72221 on x
It's just weird that all of this came about when that one guy quit and came forward now. Everybody cares about safety, but nobody was saying nothing before that. This whole situation seems off and I don't know if I trust it. I hope y'all aren't doing something that might screw th…
@aituninglab @aituninglab on x
I agree with @sama that alignment and concentration of power are real risks. But the answer cannot be less AI investment. We need more compute, better models, stronger safety research, and responsible deployment in parallel. Slowing capability development does not eliminate the r…
@bijanbowen @bijanbowen on x
@sama No real open model competition from the US is a strategic error. ppl from OAI/ANT posting on x feels like zeus tossing letters from mt olympius to those below. Those who would support you turn against because it seems like an attack on their ability to use AI that isn't you…
@ctrlaltdwayne Dwayne on x
Sam Altman has identified the dangers of Sam Altman. Alignment is progressing rapidly.
@sophty_ Sophie on x
@sama How should users have confidence in your decisions after how you treated us? You contradicted your own model spec to push an agenda, lied about deprecation dates, let staff mock us, turned your back, and called it safe. #keep4o
@mayysef Marwan on x
@sama Why did this sudden shift happen out of nowhere, why didn't this “slowdown” happen years ago with proper safety infrastructure being built. Timing is weird.
@jtsc8412 @jtsc8412 on x
@sama I don't think anyone is against you guys (frontier labs) pacing yourself. Do whatever and take responsibility for incidents instead of bragging it. Just don't try regulatory capture and force your will onto others. It's that simple. 🤷‍♂️
@sama Sam Altman on x
There are two ways AI progress could go very badly and that we must avoid. First, we could lose control of the future to AI. This is unacceptable; we are unapologetically on Team Humanity, and AI must always serve people. To ensure that, we need ways to ensure that alignment and …
@digijordan Jordan Crowder on x
I disagree with Sam Altman here... Frontier Ai companies do not ‘need’ the help of the US government...for domestic or international affairs. The US government has wrecked its standing with most of the countries we'd be wanting to reach out to anyways... And why would our adversa…
@genuinearticles @genuinearticles on x
TLDR: China must be stopped by any means necessary.
@thomasunise Thomas Unise on x
@sama Open source your models if you believe any of this
@saanvi_dhillon Saanvi on x
ngl this makes sense I am all for faster AI progress, but we should probably know where the line is before we cross it you cannot just keep making models smarter and figure out the consequences later
@hakmgpt @hakmgpt on x
sama says “pacing” AI progress does not mean stopping it. The goal is to keep advancing rapidly, but slow things down enough to ensure safety, monitoring, and alignment can keep up with increasingly capable models. No stopping. Just responsible pacing.
@jlafortetech James La Forte on x
@sama The only solution is for tech CEOs to write more essays saying that the problems they created are someone else's problem to solve.
@spectromachina @spectromachina on x
@sama Bit of a long text there sam; But how do you plan on pacing china though?
@sierracatalina @sierracatalina on x
@sama our adversaries will never agree
@chrisgpt Chris on x
TL;DR - OpenAI's position is basically, frontier labs should start voluntarily slowing themselves down with safety cases, monitoring, and alignment evaluations before major capability increasing RL runs, rather than waiting for governments to force them to. Also my favorite part …
@basedjensen @basedjensen on x
@sama How open would you guys be to none ea aligned assors that are actually competent?
@kyrannio Kiri on x
TLDR: we need insurance against blame
@theretardedelon @theretardedelon on x
@sama If you pull back on A.I. like these retards want then every other enemy / competitor to us will laugh at us while giving us the middle finger, as they accel right past us. You do NOT pull back on A.I. — it's too late at this point, Sam.
@doofyofficial @doofyofficial on x
@sama You don't care about safety, you never have. The only thing you care about is control and yourself. What you're actually trying to do is outcast modules from the public so you and your friends can have a government provided monopoly. Fck you and your scam company
@nate_taplin Nathaniel Taplin on x
I think @DavidSacks has the right of it. The idea that what we're seeing now represents a sudden outbreak of CSR at #OpenAI and #Anthropic strikes me as deeply improbable. Let's review. Besides the “AI safety

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