Stuart Russell: AI safety needs concrete goals, not just slower timelines
nordicinst · x · 2026-09-15
Stuart Russell responds to Dario Amodei's 3,800-word "We Must Pace the Frontier" letter (backed by Altman, Musk, Hassabis, Nadella), arguing that slowing capability progress alone won't buy safety.
- Safety requirements are non-negotiable and depend on meeting concrete goals, not adjusting timelines.
- The piece follows a week of industry drama: Jacob Coxon's resignation from Anthropic and revelations around the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident.
- July's "Pacing the Frontier" open letter, signed by 1,386 frontier lab employees, noted "the complete absence of credible plans for controlling superintelligent AI."
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