Some signatories of the open letter to pause AI training walk back their positions, others turn out to be fake, and many experts disagree with its proposal
I marvel the technology. But. … Kyle Dent : An open letter calls for companies to pause building AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 due to “profound risks to society and humanity.” … Peter Peng : Coming from the guy that invented Neuralink (Microchip Brain Implants), I find this incredibly disturbing. It looks like another attempted power grab by the elites for big tech dominance. … Matthew Clark : “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive to humans and their risks will be manageable.” … Daniel Miner : Don't believe the hype, and don't believe the panic either. Generative Large Language Models are becoming very powerful indeed … Timnit Gebru : And thank you to the non The New York Times journalists like Chloe Xiang of Vice for bringing sanity to this situation. Smh. … Tweets: @therecount : Fox News' Peter Doocy uses all his time at the White House press briefing to ask about an assessment that “literally everyone on Earth will die” because of artificial intelligence: “It sounds crazy, but is it?” https://twitter.com/... Andrew Ng / @andrewyng : 1/The call for a 6 month moratorium on making AI progress beyond GPT-4 is a terrible idea. I'm seeing many new applications in education, healthcare, food, ... that'll help many people. Improving GPT-4 will help. Lets balance the huge value AI is creating vs. realistic risks. @emilymbender : Okay, so that AI letter signed by lots of AI researchers calling for a “Pause [on] Giant AI Experiments”? It's just dripping with #Aihype. Here's a quick rundown. >> Brian Merchant / @bcmerchant : This open letter calling for an AI pause is plenty flawed, and yes it feeds into the apocalyptic AI hype carnival, but imo it does do one very good thing, and that is to demonstrate that saying “no” to a technology *is* an option https://www.nytimes.com/... Amjad Masad / @amasad : Now that AI doom has gone mainstream & viral, it's time for the second part of my prediction where politicians leap to something utterly stupid — most likely resulting in regulatory capture. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Robin Hanson / @robinhanson : “call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months ... jointly develop & implement a set of shared safety protocols ... [to] ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt.” Only protocol can do that is: indefinite continued pause. I vote no. https://twitter.com/... Ben Collins / @oneunderscore__ : I'll say it: The AI panic is starting to feel like an advertisement. Sam Altman / @sama : very calm in the eye of the hurricane ☺️ @mattparlmer : Yudkowsky's panic episode getting literal laughs from the DC media crowd is basically the optimal outcome as it means AI work can probably continue for a bit longer without overwhelming state interference We need that window very badly https://twitter.com/... Edward Ongweso Jr / @bigblackjacobin : This is really such an important point. So many people express skepticism of tech and the industry's claims but have wholly accepted the eschatology that it must march on if we are to progress towards some horizon. There's a shift and an opening here https://twitter.com/... Roon / @tszzl : ultimately what's gonna happen in the near future is that language model tools will continue to be delightful and make everybody's lives easier and most of the ai stress will dissipate Andrew Curran / @andrewcurran_ : New Scott Aaronson, response to Eliezer's Time piece and the open letter. https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : This was a publicity stunt that is backfiring horribly. https://twitter.com/... Sar Haribhakti / @sarthakgh : Things seem to be going well in the SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING tribe https://twitter.com/... @alexandrosm : A thread of notable researchers and thinkers pushing back against the proposed AI lockdown. Reply with any I have missed. https://twitter.com/... @theturingpost : As opposed to fake information, Yan LeCun didn't sign the letter. Other leaders of AI labs like Meta AI, and Google AI, DeepMind too. Only some of the engineers from these companies signed it. Why? https://twitter.com/... 1/ Logan Bartlett / @loganbartlett : I'm not smart enough to have an opinion about AGI's existential risk to humanity. That said even @sama admits it's a real risk - and there are too many smart people terrified about it for me to dismiss it offhand. We've seen a lot of very unlikely things actually happen in... https://twitter.com/... Stephen Pimentel / @stephenpiment : We had two shots at breaking out of the Great Stagnation: nuclear power and AI. Climate activists effectively killed nuclear power (and our best hope of slowing climate change). Now a strangely similar ideology is trying to kill AI. Gabriel / @gbrl_dick : off all the odd assumptions built into AI doomer shtick, the most obvious one is the idea of ‘buying time’. they've been writing on listservs about this since before we had facebook! their best strategy was writing a letter! we're not dealing with live players here Dr Jordan B Peterson / @jordanbpeterson : There's no pausing the inevitable, folks. There's only driving it underground. https://twitter.com/... Tom Easton / @tomeaston : I am circulating a petition urging a pause in the writing and publishing of children's books by all children's authors. I give you my assurance that I will not secretly carry on writing my own children's books during the pause. Thank you. https://twitter.com/... Ari Schulman / @arischulman : This technology is approximately two minutes old, the idea that it is somehow already too essential to society's functioning to consider pausing is silly. https://twitter.com/... Pete Skomoroch / @peteskomoroch : Andrew is right, a moratorium on AI progress is a terrible idea. It is unenforceable, and would be a gift to bad actors and hostile nations who will accelerate their efforts while ethical researchers are forced to pause. https://twitter.com/... Arthur Charpentier / @freakonometrics : “AI labs and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts.” https://www.vice.com/... @mokka : 99% of the risks of AI have to do with it's GOVERNANCE 1% with the technology itself. Not too powerful, sentient, general-purpose monsters, but closed models, and secret training sets, etc. If there should be a petition it should be about renaming #OpenAI #ClosedAI https://twitter.com/... Louise Matsakis / @lmatsakis : Some prominent names have remained like @elonmusk & @AndrewYang. @ylecun publicly denied he had signed it https://twitter.com/... @schock : Key take on the AI open letter: https://www.vice.com/... Janus Rose / @janusrose : when your sketchy AI nonprofit founded by rich techie cultists can't figure out how to verify peoples identities https://www.vice.com/... https://twitter.com/... @timnitgebru : “The...Future of Life Institute...is...host to some of the biggest proponents of longtermism, a kind of secular religion boosted by many members of the Silicon Valley tech elite since it preaches seeking massive wealth to direct towards...” @chloexiang https://www.vice.com/... @mmitchell_ai : Super helpful article about “the letter” from @chloexiang! Makes the connection to longtermism that some have been confused about as well. https://www.vice.com/... Also: “It's essentially misdirection: bringing everyone's attention to hypothetical powers and harms”-@SashaMTL See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The Future of Life Institute’s proposed pause became an early test of whether high-profile AI-risk appeals could translate into a credible policy coalition. This investigation found that the signatory list and the apparent consensus behind it were weaker than presented, while critics such as Andrew Ng rejected the moratorium outright.
The dispute did not end the push to frame advanced AI as a major societal risk: later, industry leaders joined a separate extinction-risk statement, and policy attention to long-term AI risks was amplified by Open Philanthropy-backed work in government. The contrast matters because it separates agreement on risk language from agreement on a specific development freeze.
First-order effects
- The pause letter’s advocacy value is diminished: retractions, unverifiable names, and public denials make its signatory count a less reliable signal of expert support.
- AI labs and policymakers considering a six-month moratorium face a more openly contested record, rather than a clear expert mandate for the proposal.
Second-order effects
- AI-safety advocates have incentive to place greater weight on verifiable institutional statements and concrete governance proposals than on open-letter totals; the later extinction-risk statement illustrates the continued use of broad public commitments.
- Critics can use the letter’s verification failures to challenge sweeping pause demands, forcing debate toward which risks, model thresholds, and enforcement mechanisms are actually supportable.
Third-order effects
- As frontier-AI governance develops, legitimacy may depend increasingly on auditable participation and implementable rules, not merely prominent names attached to risk claims.
- The episode points to a durable split: concern about advanced AI can coexist with disagreement over whether restrictions should slow all leading developers—a divide later reflected in arguments that regulation can favor early AI winners.
The trend: AI governance is shifting from broad warnings about frontier-model risk toward contested fights over who has standing to define risk and which interventions are enforceable.