Dario Amodei: We must pace the border, not freeze it

The head of Anthropic has published an essay in which he proposes to slow down — without stopping — the race for cutting-edge models, in three stages ranging from permanent external evaluation to international coordination.

In a text published on 14 September 2026, Dario Amodei defends the idea that the current pace of progress, fuelled by recursive system improvements, exceeds the ability of security devices to follow. Its formula: to speed up the border rather than freeze it, that is to say to spare enough time between two jumps of capacity so that the protective measures remain relevant.

The test runs three stages. The first is a unilateral commitment of Anthropic: to open permanent access to external METR-type evaluation teams, installed in premises, equipped with internal tools, responsible for verifying security practices and reporting incidents — with the right to publish their findings without editorial control of the company. The second level aims at coordination between democratic laboratories: common security standards, targeted regulation with public mediation, and checkpoints triggered by measurable capabilities rather than dates. The third envisages progressive agreements, in four levels, with authoritarian regimes.

The text immediately triggered a political battle: Donald Trump rejected these calls for slowing down, China called them alarmism, and the technological markets declined in the wake.