Critics Push Back Against the 'Pacing the Frontier' AI Safety Letter
sudoraohacker · x · 2026-07-31
Brendan McCord voiced strong disagreement with the "Pacing the Frontier" statement, which has been signed by over 1,100 frontier AI company employees.
While his disagreement isn't with the forecast or the coordination challenge, he argues that signing the letter was a bad move due to the immense and illiberal power it implies. He points out that there is no single object called "the pace"—progress relies on compute, algorithms, data, and more. He warns of unpredictable second-order effects: gating compute shifts focus to algorithms, and regulating releases drives labs to keep things in-house. Any rule attempting to pace the frontier relies on ever-shifting proxies.
Related event: Critics Slam AI Safety Statement Signed by Over 1,100 Employees(3 posts)→
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