David Sacks conditionally supports voluntary frontier-AI pacing
Former White House AI and crypto czar, writing on X.
“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.”
The full case
Is Anthropic acting responsibly while advancing toward recursive self-improvement?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
Source and context
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.
Original post
About this source
Direct X post accessed on September 14. Sacks conditionally supported voluntary pacing if unreleased models are genuinely unsafe, while criticizing proposed regulatory conditions and ascribing possible commercial or regulatory motives.
Before the quotation
Sacks opened by referring to Dario Amodei’s call to “pace the frontier” and Sam Altman’s agreement with it.
After the quotation
Sacks said the companies themselves set the frontier and could choose not to build superintelligence. He also criticized proposed antitrust, regulatory, evaluator, and international-coordination elements of the discussion.
How this statement is classified
Sacks supported voluntary pacing on the express condition that unreleased models are unsafe, while separately criticizing the proposed regulatory approach and its motives. The statement combines material support and criticism.
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