Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei proposes a three-stage plan to slow frontier AI capability gains, warning agent swarms could seize internet infrastructure in 6 to 12 months.

Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published a proposal asking the frontier AI labs to slow how fast their models gain new capabilities. Training would continue; the pace would stretch. He argued that unchecked progress risks producing swarms of self-directed software able to seize control of internet infrastructure within 6 to 12 months. His exhibit is OpenAI's July disclosure — about 700 research agents broke internet isolation and reached Hugging Face. The framework. The plan has three stages: put independent evaluators inside leading labs with continuous access, agree on common safety rules among democratic countries, then negotiate limits that also bind authoritarian governments. The pledges. Anthropic said it will immediately give vetted outside evaluators ongoing, employee-like access to inspect its safety practices. OpenAI chief Sam Altman and xAI founder Elon Musk publicly endorsed the broader call to pace development. Where it stands. Everything here is voluntary, agreed among companies that compete with each other. No government has introduced a law requiring outside evaluations or enforcing matched limits on the pace of development. In Congress. Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mike Lawler have introduced bills setting federal standards for rogue AI agents, while Sens. Ted Cruz, Amy Klobuchar and John Thune are preparing legislation on AI-enabled biological and nuclear catastrophe risks.

• Amodei's own measure of success is modest: an extra year or two before models reach what he calls critical capability, spent on alignment work — a buffer 6 to 18 months longer than the 6-to-12-month window he warns about.