Amodei Calls for Slower AI Progress; Huang Rejects New Rules at Dreamforce

A debate over who should set the speed of AI development played out onstage at Salesforce’s Dreamforce. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued for tempering capability growth, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said safety and speed can coexist—and opposed new AI rules.

A slowdown proposal reaches the keynote stage

Amodei’s appearance came days after he published an essay urging the industry to slow model development. At the September 15 keynote, he returned to that position, arguing that companies could deliberately temper how quickly model capabilities improve.

His case was not that companies should abandon competition. Amodei said the industry could slow capability growth without giving up commercial advantage or U.S. leadership in AI. That makes the dispute less about whether progress continues than about whether its pace should be an explicit industry choice.

Huang’s case for company judgment

Huang, who appeared after Amodei, called the supposed choice between moving quickly and pacing development a “false choice.” He said speed and safety are not mutually exclusive, placing the responsibility for deciding when to stop with model developers themselves.

Run as fast as you can. But if you feel at any given point in time the company’s out of control or the product’s not going to be safe, take a pause and make sure you get it right.

Huang also said existing market forces are sufficient and that the AI industry does not need new laws or regulations, according to CNBC. That position puts him at odds with a framework based on deliberately slowing capability gains before a company identifies an immediate problem.

The unresolved decision

The Dreamforce exchange exposed two different approaches to restraint. Amodei wants the industry to make room for safety by moderating capability growth; Huang’s approach relies on developers to recognize danger and pause when it appears. Whether companies, policymakers, or markets should decide that threshold remains the central divide.