Jack Clark, a co-founder of Anthropic, has asked for the capacity to slow down the development of artificial intelligence (AI), cautioning that the technology is getting close to a stage where it might advance without human input."You want to be able to put your foot on the brake instead of the gas," Clark said on BBC Newsnight. "Right now, it's like the AI industry has a gas pedal, but it doesn't have a brake pedal."
He emphasised that since AI systems would only get more potent and have wider effects on society, people must maintain control over them through government policies.In order for us to have confidence in these systems, the world needs to reflect and finally create some new regulations," he stated.

Clark compared AI to the oil boom and barons of the turn of the century, but he did not explain how a "brake pedal" for AI research and development might be developed.In response, society developed a sensible system of laws and regulations that made it unnecessary to worry about the personalities of those in charge of the firms and gave people faith in oil and the potential benefits it could bring to the world, according to Clark. "That's clearly where we end up here."
However, Anthropic applauded US President Donald Trump's executive order on AI this week, which was somewhat laissez-faire in its instructions to the businesses.Anthropic's valuation is estimated by private investors to be close to $1 trillion (£745 billion), making it one of the most lucrative stock listings in history and one of the first public listings by a more recent AI company.
According to Clark, Anthropic does not want to improve its standing with paying clients by openly promoting the expanding potential of AI technology.
He simply wants to "tell the world what we're seeing inside these companies with this unusual technology".Anthropic has positioned itself as being vocal about possible concerns associated with AI since its establishment by CEO Dario Amodei, Clark, and a few other executives.

It even got into a public fight with the US Department of Defence over worries that its AI capabilities would be used for autonomous warfare and widespread American spying."If we as a society don't have a serious conversation about what the implications of AI's continued advances mean, I am worried for my kids," Clark told Newsnight. "There could be significant advantages. There are dangers as well.
One of the hazards, according to Clark, is economic disruption due to concerns that AI technologies such as "agents"—basically, individual AI bots that perform everyday activities fairly autonomously—may replace some occupations.Over the past year, large tech businesses have implemented widespread layoffs, frequently citing the increasing capacity of AI technologies to perform the tasks of hundreds or even thousands of software workers.
According to Clark, those with greater creativity and better ideas might actually have an advantage over AI technology.The topic of whether AI systems can be genuinely creative is still up for debate, he continued. "There isn't really evidence for that yet." "At Anthropic, we're now limited more by the ability to generate good ideas than the ability to do the engineering to turn those ideas into reality."

"People that are creative and can think broadly, people that read a lot, people that have interests are the ones most benefited by this," Clark commented. "Indulge in curiosity and it pays back in how you can use this technology."