{"slug": "pacing-the-frontier", "title": "Pacing the Frontier", "summary": "1,122 employees of frontier AI companies, including chief scientists from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google, issued a statement requesting U.S. government support for an international effort to develop technical and governance tools to deliberately pace the development of automated AI, warning that competitive pressures risk accelerating capability beyond the ability to understand or control resulting systems.", "body_md": "JULY 2026\n\nA statement from 1,122 employees of frontier AI companies\n\nAI could help create a dramatically better future, but that outcome is not guaranteed. The world's leading AI companies believe they could be close to automating AI research. It is hard to predict exactly how much this will accelerate AI progress, but there is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.\n\nTo realize AI's potential, industry, government, and society at large may need the option to buy time to address emerging risks, develop security measures, and strengthen oversight. But each company—and country—is under intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow that acceleration. And today, the world lacks the technical and governance tools to deliberately pace frontier-wide progress.\n\nBuilding on work already underway to monitor frontier model releases:\n\nWe request that the U.S. government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.”\n\n- 1122 employees of frontier AI companies\n\nJohn Schulman\n\nChief Scientist, Thinking Machines\n\nJakub Pachocki\n\nChief Scientist, OpenAI\n\nJared Kaplan\n\nCo-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Anthropic\n\nShengjia Zhao\n\nChief Scientist, Meta\n\nJack Clark\n\nCofounder and Head of Public Benefit, Anthropic\n\nMark Chen\n\nChief Research Officer, OpenAI\n\nAnca Dragan\n\nVP, AI Safety & Alignment, Google\n\nWojciech Zaremba\n\nHead of AI Resilience, OpenAI Foundation\n\nDawn Song\n\nVP, AI Research, Meta\n\nChris Olah\n\nCofounder & Interpretability Research Lead, Anthropic\n\nLaura Weidinger\n\nStaff Research Scientist, Google\n\nBenjamin Mann\n\nCofounder, Anthropic\n\nStephanie Chan\n\nStaff Research Scientist, Google\n\nJulian Schrittwieser\n\nAnthropic\n\nSummer Yue\n\nDirector of Alignment and Risk, Meta\n\nJan Leike\n\nAnthropic\n\nBoaz Barak\n\nOpenAI\n\nMike Krieger\n\nMember of Technical Staff, Anthropic\n\nMary Phuong\n\nSenior Research Scientist, Google\n\nShantanu Jain\n\nMember of Technical Staff, OpenAI\n\nAll comments are made in a personal capacity and do not necessarily represent any company’s views.\n\n\"The world is locked in a deadly race towards an intelligence explosion, where AI’s ability to create better AIs reaches a critical point, just like a runaway nuclear chain reaction. Going slower would give us much-needed time to make it go well, but no individual actor is willing to stop unilaterally. To survive, we must coordinate to slow down the race.\"\n\nLeo Gao\n\nMember of Technical Staff, OpenAI\n\n\"Even after 3 years working on AI capability evaluations, the recent pace of progress has been a shock. To avoid catastrophic harms from AGI, we need much, much better coordination.\"\n\nMatthew Rahtz\n\nStaff Research Engineer, Google\n\n\"As a foreign national, I see a US-supported effort as existential, not only for the liberties of the free world but for the prosperity of all.\"\n\nChristian Ryan\n\nMember of Technical Staff, Anthropic\n\n\"Like splitting the atom, AI holds the potential for both immense benefit and immense risk. The world should take the time to do this right.\"\n\nWill Yager\n\nAnthropic\n\n\"At the current pace, every couple of weeks there will be new models which significantly increase the consequences of model misuse and misalignment. I worry that efforts to mitigate these risks may fail to keep up with the pace of development, and that margins for error will become increasingly small under international competitive pressures. In the near future, we may urgently want to enact an…\"\n\nMicah Carroll\n\nMisalignment Preparedness, OpenAI\n\n\"AI is progressing at a rate that our society might not be ready for. Frontier labs are very close to AI that can exceed even the best people on almost every metric of intelligence. This will lead to unprecedented social and safety risks. To ensure a positive future we need to develop AI in a way that is driven by responsibility and thoughtfulness.\"\n\nShengjia Zhao\n\nChief Scientist, Meta\n\n\"Signed because this statement helps establish common knowledge about the possible need for coordination mechanisms as automated AI research accelerates progress. I'd also like to see labs start designing these mechanisms voluntarily, even before the USG gets involved.\"\n\nJohn Schulman\n\nChief Scientist, Thinking Machines\n\n\"In the span of four years, we have gone from people having their first experience of an Al that could understand language, to Al that is performing superhuman feats of software engineering, making frontier math breakthroughs, and accelerating scientific research. Progress has shown no signs of slowing down and by default it is in the interest of individual corporations and countries to push the…\"\n\nShantanu Jain\n\nMember of Technical Staff, OpenAI\n\n\"As Melvin Kranzberg wrote, technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. Achieving societal benefit depends on understanding the interdependent ways in which many humans use advanced AI systems in concert, understanding that takes time to acquire. Pacing progress towards automated AI research allows us the time to build understanding of societal-scale changes, yielding not only an…\"\n\nEdward Hughes\n\nChief Scientist, Inherent\n\n\"The world is locked in a deadly race towards an intelligence explosion, where AI’s ability to create better AIs reaches a critical point, just like a runaway nuclear chain reaction. Going slower would give us much-needed time to make it go well, but no individual actor is willing to stop unilaterally. To survive, we must coordinate to slow down the race.\"\n\nLeo Gao\n\nMember of Technical Staff, OpenAI\n\n\"As a foreign national, I see a US-supported effort as existential, not only for the liberties of the free world but for the prosperity of all.\"\n\nChristian Ryan\n\nMember of Technical Staff, Anthropic\n\n\"At the current pace, every couple of weeks there will be new models which significantly increase the consequences of model misuse and misalignment. I worry that efforts to mitigate these risks may fail to keep up with the pace of development, and that margins for error will become increasingly small under international competitive pressures. In the near future, we may urgently want to enact an…\"\n\nMicah Carroll\n\nMisalignment Preparedness, OpenAI\n\n\"Signed because this statement helps establish common knowledge about the possible need for coordination mechanisms as automated AI research accelerates progress. I'd also like to see labs start designing these mechanisms voluntarily, even before the USG gets involved.\"\n\nJohn Schulman\n\nChief Scientist, Thinking Machines\n\n\"As Melvin Kranzberg wrote, technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. Achieving societal benefit depends on understanding the interdependent ways in which many humans use advanced AI systems in concert, understanding that takes time to acquire. Pacing progress towards automated AI research allows us the time to build understanding of societal-scale changes, yielding not only an…\"\n\nEdward Hughes\n\nChief Scientist, Inherent\n\n\"Even after 3 years working on AI capability evaluations, the recent pace of progress has been a shock. To avoid catastrophic harms from AGI, we need much, much better coordination.\"\n\nMatthew Rahtz\n\nStaff Research Engineer, Google\n\n\"Like splitting the atom, AI holds the potential for both immense benefit and immense risk. The world should take the time to do this right.\"\n\nWill Yager\n\nAnthropic\n\n\"AI is progressing at a rate that our society might not be ready for. Frontier labs are very close to AI that can exceed even the best people on almost every metric of intelligence. This will lead to unprecedented social and safety risks. To ensure a positive future we need to develop AI in a way that is driven by responsibility and thoughtfulness.\"\n\nShengjia Zhao\n\nChief Scientist, Meta\n\n\"In the span of four years, we have gone from people having their first experience of an Al that could understand language, to Al that is performing superhuman feats of software engineering, making frontier math breakthroughs, and accelerating scientific research. Progress has shown no signs of slowing down and by default it is in the interest of individual corporations and countries to push the…\"\n\nShantanu Jain\n\nMember of Technical Staff, OpenAI\n\n\"The world is locked in a deadly race towards an intelligence explosion, where AI’s ability to create better AIs reaches a critical point, just like a runaway nuclear chain reaction. Going slower would give us much-needed time to make it go well, but no individual actor is willing to stop unilaterally. To survive, we must coordinate to slow down the race.\"\n\nLeo Gao\n\nMember of Technical Staff, OpenAI\n\n\"Like splitting the atom, AI holds the potential for both immense benefit and immense risk. The world should take the time to do this right.\"\n\nWill Yager\n\nAnthropic\n\n\"Signed because this statement helps establish common knowledge about the possible need for coordination mechanisms as automated AI research accelerates progress. I'd also like to see labs start designing these mechanisms voluntarily, even before the USG gets involved.\"\n\nJohn Schulman\n\nChief Scientist, Thinking Machines\n\n\"Even after 3 years working on AI capability evaluations, the recent pace of progress has been a shock. To avoid catastrophic harms from AGI, we need much, much better coordination.\"\n\nMatthew Rahtz\n\nStaff Research Engineer, Google\n\n\"At the current pace, every couple of weeks there will be new models which significantly increase the consequences of model misuse and misalignment. I worry that efforts to mitigate these risks may fail to keep up with the pace of development, and that margins for error will become increasingly small under international competitive pressures. In the near future, we may urgently want to enact an…\"\n\nMicah Carroll\n\nMisalignment Preparedness, OpenAI\n\n\"In the span of four years, we have gone from people having their first experience of an Al that could understand language, to Al that is performing superhuman feats of software engineering, making frontier math breakthroughs, and accelerating scientific research. Progress has shown no signs of slowing down and by default it is in the interest of individual corporations and countries to push the…\"\n\nShantanu Jain\n\nMember of Technical Staff, OpenAI\n\n\"As a foreign national, I see a US-supported effort as existential, not only for the liberties of the free world but for the prosperity of all.\"\n\nChristian Ryan\n\nMember of Technical Staff, Anthropic\n\n\"AI is progressing at a rate that our society might not be ready for. Frontier labs are very close to AI that can exceed even the best people on almost every metric of intelligence. This will lead to unprecedented social and safety risks. To ensure a positive future we need to develop AI in a way that is driven by responsibility and thoughtfulness.\"\n\nShengjia Zhao\n\nChief Scientist, Meta\n\n\"As Melvin Kranzberg wrote, technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. Achieving societal benefit depends on understanding the interdependent ways in which many humans use advanced AI systems in concert, understanding that takes time to acquire. Pacing progress towards automated AI research allows us the time to build understanding of societal-scale changes, yielding not only an…\"\n\nEdward Hughes\n\nChief Scientist, Inherent\n\nIf you are an employee at a frontier AI company,\n\nyou can sign the letter [here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9xHYzpFwQCtc4JH4VyGwUYAwbYm2JWkqCytqAQ4eZ1Sm9bw/viewform).\n\nTo be verified, you must sign using your corporate email or otherwise provide proof of employment.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pacing-the-frontier", "canonical_source": "https://www.pacingthefrontier.com/", "published_at": "2026-07-28 20:09:09+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-28 20:22:49.448944+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-safety", "ai-policy", "ai-research"], "entities": ["OpenAI", "Anthropic", "Meta", "Google", "John Schulman", "Jakub Pachocki", "Jared Kaplan", "Shengjia Zhao"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pacing-the-frontier", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pacing-the-frontier.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pacing-the-frontier.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/pacing-the-frontier.jsonld"}}