Pacing the Frontier

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.

JULY 2026 A statement from 1,122 employees of frontier AI companies AI 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. To 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. Building on work already underway to monitor frontier model releases: We 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.” - 1122 employees of frontier AI companies John Schulman Chief Scientist, Thinking Machines Jakub Pachocki Chief Scientist, OpenAI Jared Kaplan Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Anthropic Shengjia Zhao Chief Scientist, Meta Jack Clark Cofounder and Head of Public Benefit, Anthropic Mark Chen Chief Research Officer, OpenAI Anca Dragan VP, AI Safety & Alignment, Google Wojciech Zaremba Head of AI Resilience, OpenAI Foundation Dawn Song VP, AI Research, Meta Chris Olah Cofounder & Interpretability Research Lead, Anthropic Laura Weidinger Staff Research Scientist, Google Benjamin Mann Cofounder, Anthropic Stephanie Chan Staff Research Scientist, Google Julian Schrittwieser Anthropic Summer Yue Director of Alignment and Risk, Meta Jan Leike Anthropic Boaz Barak OpenAI Mike Krieger Member of Technical Staff, Anthropic Mary Phuong Senior Research Scientist, Google Shantanu Jain Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI All comments are made in a personal capacity and do not necessarily represent any company’s views. "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." Leo Gao Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI "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." Matthew Rahtz Staff Research Engineer, Google "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." Christian Ryan Member of Technical Staff, Anthropic "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." Will Yager Anthropic "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…" Micah Carroll Misalignment Preparedness, OpenAI "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." Shengjia Zhao Chief Scientist, Meta "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." John Schulman Chief Scientist, Thinking Machines "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…" Shantanu Jain Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI "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…" Edward Hughes Chief Scientist, Inherent "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." Leo Gao Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI "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." Christian Ryan Member of Technical Staff, Anthropic "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…" Micah Carroll Misalignment Preparedness, OpenAI "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." John Schulman Chief Scientist, Thinking Machines "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…" Edward Hughes Chief Scientist, Inherent "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." Matthew Rahtz Staff Research Engineer, Google "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." Will Yager Anthropic "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." Shengjia Zhao Chief Scientist, Meta "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…" Shantanu Jain Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI "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." Leo Gao Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI "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." Will Yager Anthropic "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." John Schulman Chief Scientist, Thinking Machines "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." Matthew Rahtz Staff Research Engineer, Google "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…" Micah Carroll Misalignment Preparedness, OpenAI "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…" Shantanu Jain Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI "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." Christian Ryan Member of Technical Staff, Anthropic "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." Shengjia Zhao Chief Scientist, Meta "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…" Edward Hughes Chief Scientist, Inherent If you are an employee at a frontier AI company, you can sign the letter here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9xHYzpFwQCtc4JH4VyGwUYAwbYm2JWkqCytqAQ4eZ1Sm9bw/viewform . To be verified, you must sign using your corporate email or otherwise provide proof of employment.