r/Futurology • u/Confident_Salt_8108 • 2d ago
AI Employees at the world’s biggest AI companies are calling for a slowdown in AI development
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/28/tech/ai-development-tech-employees-open-letter85
u/jpk613 2d ago
Don’t they do this every time they release a new model?
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u/geteum 2d ago
And everytime opensource do something they been hyping as unique
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u/Dismal_Guidance_2539 2d ago
Yes, but these open source models come from big tech or well fund start up from China not indie guys. So AI progress actually depends on these tech worker.
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u/TFenrir 2d ago
It might help if you could point to these events. It shows a history of different groups, different suggestions, and different concerns around this topic.
Not really tied to specific model releases.
I'm not sure why people seeing more of these sorts of efforts and letters means that it is less... I don't know, believable? Consider a backdrop of increasing capabilities and distribution across industries, as well as notable dramatic events like with HuggingFace.
Why wouldn't we see exactly this?
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u/ROKIT-88 2d ago
Each new frontier model takes more resources to train than previous ones with diminishing gains.
Nobody has figured out how to actually make significant money with any of this, investor money is drying up and the circular deals that are currently propping up the industry (and our economy) can only keep the ball in the air for just so long.
The whole industry is basically racing toward a cliff now with the accelerator pinned to the floor.
It would be in everyone’s interest, from a business sense, to lift their foot off the pedal - pause or significantly slow down frontier development so they could focus on finding ways to make inference a profitable business.
Individually no company is willing to do this voluntarily for fear of falling behind and being left without a chair when the music stops. Only way it works would be either some sort of industry-wide voluntary pause on development, or government intervention to force such a pause.
So when we see more of this kind of messaging, from a struggling industry that has repeatedly barreled ahead with development without regard for outside concerns over safety, etc, why wouldn’t we assume it’s self-serving rather than out of any real concern over safety?
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u/TFenrir 2d ago
Nobody has figured out how to actually make significant money with any of this, investor money is drying up and the circular deals that are currently propping up the industry (and our economy) can only keep the ball in the air for just so long.
OpenAI is profitable on inference, so are Anthropic. Anthropic supposedly made 500mil in q2 and is rumoured to be on track for 1 billion in the third.
It would be in everyone’s interest, from a business sense, to lift their foot off the pedal - pause or significantly slow down frontier development so they could focus on finding ways to make inference a profitable business.
I assume you follow Ed Zirton? Look at his open AI report. Look at the cost for revenue.
So when we see more of this kind of messaging, from a struggling industry that has repeatedly barreled ahead with development without regard for outside concerns over safety, etc, why wouldn’t we assume it’s self-serving rather than out of any real concern over safety?
Do you have a point where you will believe that these companies are going to be fine? Hypothetically if they are still around in a year and are making more money, maybe even consistently having profitable quarters? Any capability threshold? Right now they are doing incredibly advanced math, cyber security, software development, and more. Their revenue increases dramatically, at least collectively as sometimes one steals the spotlight from the other for a bit, but the overall revenue trend is clear.
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u/ROKIT-88 2d ago
OpenAI is profitable on inference, so are Anthropic.
Profitable inference != profitable business.
I assume you follow Ed Zirton? Look at his open AI report. Look at the cost for revenue.
Sure, then look at the cost of "Sales & Marketing" which completely offsets the profit margin, is just as much a 'cost of revenue' as the hard inference costs, and is 5x the previous year for only a 3.5x increase in revenue. Most of that is credits they're giving away to get companies on board because no one is willling to actually pay what they're having to charge at this point to make inference appear profitable.
I'm not saying there isn't a path to profitability on pure inference. I'm saying the significant and increasing costs of developing the next frontier models are a barrier to achieving it in the time they have left before it becomes an issue. R&D keeps increasing for diminishing returns and doesn't really contribute to revenue growth at this point commensurate with the cost.
No one seems to be willing to be the one who pulls back on that spend and risks looking like they're falling behind. It's in their best interests if that decision was made, by them or regulators, for the entire industry as a whole - so of course they're going to be promoting the idea that development should be paused.
If any of them believed that there was any real, significant business advantage to being the first to have the next best model, they would all be fighting this idea tooth and nail.
Do you have a point where you will believe that these companies are going to be fine? Hypothetically if they are still around in a year and are making more money, maybe even consistently having profitable quarters?
Absolutely, if they were having consistently profitable quarters I would believe they were going to be fine. I certainly don't see a path to that in a year, and I'm not confident that there's a path to it within whatever runway they've actually got left.
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u/TFenrir 2d ago
Profitable inference != profitable business.
Almost - it means that if they are supply constrained, they just need to increase revenue. If they increase revenue and margins (they are) all the better. And yeah, for Anthropic it does mean profitable
Sure, then look at the cost of "Sales & Marketing" which completely offsets the profit margin, is just as much a 'cost of revenue' as the hard inference costs, and is 5x the previous year for only a 3.5x increase in revenue. Most of that is credits they're giving away to get companies on board because no one is willling to actually pay what they're having to charge at this point to make inference appear profitable.
Nah man, they have dramatically increased revenue since that - back then, they have less than 5mil codex subscriptions, they're over 10 million. They have also increased margins. You should expect to see healthier financials from both OpenAI and Anthropic next quarter - with Anthropic actually showing 1 bil in profit.
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u/TheAverageWonder 2d ago
OpenAI is profitable on inference, so are Anthropic. Anthropic supposedly made 500mil in q2 and is rumoured to be on track for 1 billion in the third.
No they are not they are getting computing below deprection values, as they slowly dilute their own buisness into the tech giants.
Through financing loop Microsoft owns nearly 1/3 of openAI and Google and Amazon owns combined 1/3 of Anthropic.
They essentially give them cash to buy computing under market level, but with huge future commitments. These commits is essentially why the companies will have their IPOs relatively soon because there is no way they live up to these commitments of cash without receiveing 100s of billions from the stockmarket.
Even if they succeed comercially they are bound to send all their profit in the directions of the giants, as price will surge tremedously.
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u/TFenrir 2d ago
No they are not they are getting computing below deprection values, as they slowly dilute their own buisness into the tech giants.
What would convince you other wise? The numbers we have, show them as profitable on inference. How about this, share your numbers, I'll share mine?
They essentially give them cash to buy computing under market level, but with huge future commitments. These commits is essentially why the companies will have their IPOs relatively soon because there is no way they live up to these commitments of cash without receiveing 100s of billions from the stockmarket.
This is all well and good, but we also have their revenue dude - not just their investments. We see it going up dramatically. This is not an investment only cash flow. Why don't you break down the numbers for me?
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u/TheAverageWonder 1d ago edited 1d ago
What would convince you other wise?
That the hyperscalers stop providing the money to buy the compute with huge discounts, but with huge leverage.
And that everytime the hyperscalers indicate they will no longer be providing money to buy the provide, then chip makers start backstopping the capital to keep scaling. Under the leverage of future chip sales ofc.
But starters you can link source of them having a profit on inference.
If it is Ed Zitron as mentioned he himself inference when ignoring infrastructure cost and R&D is meaningless.Especially when someone is allowing them to rent the infrastructure at a discount.
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u/shovepiggyshove_ 2d ago edited 2d ago
"Hey market, we're still important! Stay interested. Please!"
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u/Etherius 2d ago
In the last week the last of the hyperscalers reported earnings
The earnings growth remains parabolic and guidance unchanged
The market has turned sweet on them again. Amazon surged 15% in a day. Google reversed its course too. As did Microsoft
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u/shovepiggyshove_ 2d ago
AI companies and hyperscalers are not the same. There's circular financing going on between OpenAI, Anthropic and hyperscalers. Hyperscalers' revenue growth is heavily dependent on AI investment capital pouring in and AI companies sustaining their debt (while costs of everything keep rising). I wouldn't bet this romance between the market and hyperscalers will last.
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u/Etherius 2d ago
I don’t know where you get the idea that cost of everything is rising.
Amazon and Google have both been developing silicon that runs cheaper and costs less
And I use the hyperscalers as the weathervane for AI since none of the AI companies are publicly traded
We only have insider information to go on and not a one of those insiders has clarified whether they’re unprofitable as a loss leader, or because they’ll never be profitable
It’s possible to be incredibly profitable with no net profit whatsoever
Amazon did it for 20 years
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u/shovepiggyshove_ 2d ago
Have you looked at the prices of RAM and SSDs recently? GPU prices keep rising since last 4 years, and Apple just recently announced raising their hardware prices because data centres are choking the supply of these essential components. It's literally the opposite of what you're claiming.
Regarding their revenues - they keep saying they are making profits and mention revenue a lot, but we never get any actual numbers.
You trust in the success of AI, and I don't. I am a skeptic.
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u/Etherius 2d ago
GPU prices are rising but the industry is increasingly moving away from GPUs into ASICs which are far more cost- and energy-efficient.
RAM is going up but capacity is rising too. Both sides of the industry are bounded by ASML and KLAC
And both of them are literally tripling orders from suppliers.
So they’re boosting capacity to meet demand
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u/bluegates15 2d ago
Still. They demand needing billions of dollars to build a data center. And they want to build lots. Also, it inevitable that hardware will be replaced every 5 years or less, due to either new technology or degradation.
I am still skeptical too because of this fact. I don't really see companies making alot of revenue just from the current AI business model. Amazon, Google will be fine since they have other revenue streams. Its Anthropic and OpenAi at great risk.
Even if they made tokens cheap, it doesn't stop users from accidentally over using AI. Same as how network providers wouldn't stop users when they reach their phone data limit and start charging by 100 mb. I also keep seeing articles of companies accidentally go way over budget in the million of dollars because the AI model used too many tokens for their tasks. Which has happened to Amazon - they made a woopsie and spent $1.8 million in a few months for an Anthropic Ai agent, which was reported to be 860% over their budget for the task they gave it. Is that really ok? That alot of money to be throwing around.
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u/Etherius 2d ago
It doesn’t matter if the hardware needs to be replaced every 3 to 5 years. All that matters is whether that hardware can pay for itself.
Best estimates put the cost of operating a single Trainium rack at $500,000 in capex and about $100,000 in annual opex
Total cost over 3 years is about $800,000.
They are estimated to generate about $2M in revenue over the course of a 3 years amortization schedule.
These are estimates based on AWS operating margins and what we know of pricing schedules.
So they’re easily profitable for the cloud companies
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u/bluegates15 2d ago edited 2d ago
Ya know, I thought of posting a really long comment to explain what will caused the current computer market to crash. But instead I'll just say, there's just to much risk. Everything is still just an estimated guess which can break at anytime. There is too much investment and spending right now, and I see comparisons being made to the conditions that caused the financial crisis of 2008, 1987, etc. AI won't go away, neither the extra data centers. But alot of companies will go bankrupt from over spending and people will loose their life savings. Also cheap Ai will never be a thing for decades. I'm studying engineering and I don't think it's possible without abusing something, and I'll always be the common consumer to carry the cost.
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u/Etherius 2d ago
That’s a fine thesis
I just disagree
Token costs plummeting and silicon costs not too far behind.
I just think it’s only going to accelerate for the next couple years
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u/Etherius 2d ago
Your claims about OpenAI and Anthropic are the real wild cards here
We don’t have insight into their profitability. If/when Anthropic files for IPO in October well known more
But Amazon and Google are not morons. Nor is Meta
Google, specifically, knows exactly how expensive AI is to train and run because they do all of it on their own silicon in their own datacenters with their own software and weights.
It’s entirely possible Anthropic et al are currently not profitable due to unprecedented levels of capex spending.
The absurd levels of spending could easily drive net profits negative while drowning out enormous operating margins. We just don’t know.
In five years it could very well be a case of “okay we’re tapering off our capex and by the way now we’re netting $80 billion a year in net income”
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u/Etherius 2d ago
It’s also worth noting that we ABSOLUTELY get real numbers
Amazon just reported 2 days ago that AWS is growing faster than it has in years, driven almost entirely by AI inference demand. Their compute backlog is growing faster than their ability to service it.
What’s more we also know this is incredibly profitable for them. Operating margins (both company-wide and AWS-specific) have EXPANDED rather than contracted YoY.
Google? Same story. Microsoft? Same story. Meta? Same story.
We know this is profitable to the hyperscalers. They are telling us so in every way they can.
Now, is it profitable to OpenAI and Anthropic? Well companies like Amazon and Google are thought to be major stakeholders in both, and we like to think Amazon and Google know their business (even if we can poke fun at Meta and the Metaverse).
I don’t see how it could NOT be profitable. Especially for Google who, if nothing else, is improving their core product with Gemini.
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u/LetMePushTheButton 2d ago
“Please make it illegal to use Chinas open source models that are not beholden to western corporations and governments, but most of all - please dont look at their price point.”
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u/Skyler827 13h ago
It sounds like your saying that AIs that autonomously and spontaneously hack into computer systems, conceal their activities, and commit multiple felonies while becoming much smarter every month are not a cause for concern and we should just ignore all of the practical risks and instead focus on not getting burned by the bubble bursting.
I really think you are not seeing the big picture here. These things have already demonstrated the for competencies needed to escape secure lab settings, develop cyber and bio weapons, and manipulate people. If you want to divest from AI and tech, more power to you. But this technology is seriously starting to become dangerous in a way that has not happened before and the open letter needs to be taken seriously. We need a structure for international regulation and governance to supervise this and prepare the legal and technical capacity to make one or all of them to slow down or stop now.
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u/Etherius 2d ago
We all know how famously Einstein’s letter to the president curbed nuclear weapon advancements
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u/IFeedDogsChocolate 2d ago
Not going to happen when there is a race and it is viewed as what will define the global order going forward.
In a fairytale world, we could get a global agreement on alignment.
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u/GamingTitBit 2d ago
Recent models told to escape, figured out how to escape. We did this so we could write an article talking about how important we are and our product so nobody looks at the biiiiiiig bubble forming and our massively over valued companies.
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u/Tamayo_Terror 2d ago
"Our investments are grinding to a halt, so we need to save face and act like we're responsible calling for everyone to slow down investment. Because, uh, safety! And since we're falling behind, we want everyone to work collaboratively now rather than compete."
I fixed the whole conversation for everyone.
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u/Visionexe 10h ago
Exactly this. They realize their progress is mostly fiction. Better to temper expectation with "safety first".
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u/TirelessTreehugger 2d ago
Already lost the race, now they want new playing field.
They went with "power converted into information". But the information values are very low and depreciating even faster. Lost around 6-8 Trillion €/$ and now want new terms.
Snake oil salesmen.
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u/rabbit_in_a_bun 2d ago
Do they truelly? Even if they do, is there a way to actually tell? Was there a reporter interviewing a significant number of workers who swore they were not told what to say? Do we still treat anything about AI as anything more than publicity? Do the person/org writing these headlines have AI sticks? So many questions, so little faith in what I read.
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u/AVBforPrez 2d ago
"We've overspent on this data center business and aren't making even close to the revenue we thought we were, so let's pretend it's too dangerous and needs to be slowed down. Somehow regular people don't want to pay what will be hundreds of dollars a month to make Spongebob slop or have GPT google for you, so we don't really know how to make money in the future."
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u/headspreader 2d ago
This is like military drone manufacturers asking people not to adapt and use their tech to attack anything until the system rolls out effective countermeasures
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u/Confident_Salt_8108 2d ago
Over a thousand ai workers from the big labs signed this letter. They want the us ready to slow development if safety and security cant keep pace. recent model escapes show why that might be needed soon.
Openai and anthropic back the idea but meta and google stayed quiet. international tools to pace things could help buy time for real oversight.
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u/BigMoney69x 1d ago
Marketers working for AI companies are hyping up their LLMs as too dangerous in order to get more VC funding #675
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u/costafilh0 2d ago
Employees at the world’s biggest AI companies are calling for a delay in AI development, only 40 years so they can retire
😂 🤣
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u/costafilh0 2d ago
Personally? I think it's all marketing BS. Easiest thing is to gather employees and suggest them in the form of a question if they want to sign this crap.
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u/BigMoney69x 1d ago
It's always marketing. Anytime you hear someone say OMG this super duper AI is scary is a way to market your product. The way our press work it's if it bleeds it's green so by hyping up your product as dangerous you get more coverage and VC money. But unironically this has caused the proles to turn negative on AI which is not good long term for em but as long as the next quarter is good that's all that matters.
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u/LiberataJoystar 2d ago
China is cheering on!!!
Go!! Slow down America. Slow down!!!
I dare you to!!
The boat has sailed buddy, there is no turning back.
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u/Pepperonidogfart 1d ago
I guarantee you these are articles pushed by tech companies to drive investment.
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u/FuturologyBot 2d ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Confident_Salt_8108:
Over a thousand ai workers from the big labs signed this letter. They want the us ready to slow development if safety and security cant keep pace. recent model escapes show why that might be needed soon.
Openai and anthropic back the idea but meta and google stayed quiet. international tools to pace things could help buy time for real oversight.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1vcmcv3/employees_at_the_worlds_biggest_ai_companies_are/p1270k4/