More than 1,200 employees from leading artificial intelligence companies have signed a public statement urging the U.S. government to help develop international safeguards that could deliberately pace the development of the world’s most advanced AI systems if future risks require it.
The statement, titled “Pacing the Frontier,” had gathered 1,273 verified signatories at the time of writing. The signatories include employees from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, xAI, Mistral AI, Hugging Face and Thinking Machines Lab, among other AI organizations.
According to the statement, recent advances suggest that frontier AI companies may be approaching the point where AI systems can automate AI research, potentially accelerating the pace of AI development.
“There is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems,” the statement says.
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The signatories argue that governments should prepare for that possibility by developing the technical and governance tools needed to “deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.” They say these tools should be developed before they become necessary, allowing policymakers to respond if AI capabilities begin advancing faster than existing safety measures and oversight can keep up.
The statement does not call for an immediate pause in AI development. Instead, it urges the U.S. government to support an international effort to build mechanisms that could slow the deployment of increasingly capable AI systems when needed, while continuing to invest in AI safety research and governance.
Among its recommendations, the statement calls on governments to support research into AI safety, strengthen international cooperation, and develop policies capable of managing increasingly powerful AI systems. It also urges policymakers to begin preparing governance frameworks now rather than waiting until more advanced AI capabilities emerge.
The initiative is backed by the nonprofit organizations Guidelight AI Standards and Encode AI, which say the goal is to ensure governments have the tools needed to manage future advances in frontier AI while supporting continued innovation.
