Demis Hassabis says Amodei’s proposal points in the right direction
Co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind and Alphabet chief scientist, writing on his public X account.
“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.”
The full case
Is Anthropic acting responsibly while advancing toward recursive self-improvement?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
Source and context
Original post
About this source
Direct X post by Demis Hassabis quoting Dario Amodei’s September 12 announcement of “We Must Pace the Frontier.” Hassabis endorsed the proposal’s direction, said the details still needed work, and linked his July proposal for an industry-wide frontier-AI standards body. This supports Hassabis’s stated position; it does not commit Google DeepMind to every element of Amodei’s plan or to embedded external evaluators.
Original post
About this source
Hassabis’s full public proposal for a frontier-AI standards body. It calls for independent technical governance, initially voluntary pre-release review, possible later mandatory review for U.S. deployment, regularly updated safety evaluations, and the ability to coordinate slower development if assessed risks warrant it. The proposal is evidence of Hassabis’s framework and does not establish adoption by Google, other laboratories, or the U.S. government.
Reporting
About this source
Axios AM reporting on public reactions to Dario Amodei’s proposal. Direct retrieval of the cited X posts was unavailable in this research pass.
Reporting
About this source
El País reports and reproduces Demis Hassabis’s response to Dario Amodei’s proposal.
Before the quotation
Hassabis quoted Amodei’s September 12 post announcing “We Must Pace the Frontier.” Amodei said the industry should slow frontier-AI development and that Anthropic would give third-party evaluators permanent employee-level access to its systems.
After the quotation
Hassabis linked his July proposal for a frontier-AI standards body. That framework begins with voluntary pre-release review, contemplates later mandatory review for U.S. deployment, and allows coordinated slowing among frontier labs if the assessed risks warrant it.
How this statement is classified
Hassabis expressly called the proposal’s direction correct. Saying that its details still need work limits the scope of his endorsement but does not make his support conditional or reverse it; the record does not treat the post as approval of every implementation detail.
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More from this case
Read the full case“We can put guardrails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that ... shouldn’t be bringing it up, and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen. But whoever wins with AI wins.”Read statement
“If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible. But stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission.”Read statement
“The government has a critical role to play here, including blocking the sale of the most advanced chips to adversarial nations like China, enacting a national law requiring testing of frontier models, with the power to block the most advanced models that prove to be unsafe.”Read statement