Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has joined the conversation about the growing debate over the pace of AI development. Unlike other leaders, Nadella has not called for a complete pause but said that the development of advanced AI must move at a pace that allows safety and alignment measures to keep up. This statement comes shortly after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on AI companies to slow the development of frontier models, a proposal backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk.
Taking to X, Nadella stated that the pursuit of superintelligence should be guided by a basic principle: AI must benefit humanity and remain under human control. He also backed the use of independent evaluators to assess advanced AI systems and verify whether companies are following their stated safety measures.
Amodei has proposed giving third party evaluators permanent, employee-level access to AI companies for slowing the pace of development. He has argued that AI capabilities could advance faster than the safeguards needed to manage them.
Along with speed, Nadella also warned against allowing control over advanced AI to become concentrated among a small group of companies. He called for wider participation from governments, businesses, academia and other parts of the technology industry in shaping how AI develops.
Nadella also stressed that businesses should retain the greater control of the AI systems they use. Companies should also be able to incorporate their knowledge into AI models and maintain the control over the systems built around their proprietary information, rather than becoming overly dependent on a single AI provider.
Microsoft is also preparing a Code of Conduct for its first-party MAI models, which Nadella said will be released for public consultation. The framework is expected to outline how Microsoft’s own AI systems should be developed and deployed.