More than 1,200 AI employees urge US government to support international AI governance

More than 1,200 employees from leading AI companies have signed an open letter calling on the US government to support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to keep pace with advances in artificial intelligence.

The letter, organised by the Pacing the Frontier initiative, has attracted 1,224 signatories from frontier AI companies, including OpenAI, Meta, and Google DeepMind, as well as researchers and employees from other organisations working on advanced AI.

The signatories argue that while AI has the potential to deliver significant benefits, rapid advances in the technology could outstrip society’s ability to understand or control increasingly capable systems.

The letter states that leading AI companies believe they may be approaching the point where AI systems can automate AI research, potentially accelerating future development at an unprecedented rate.

It warns that this could cause AI capabilities to advance faster than governments, regulators, and researchers can develop appropriate safety measures and oversight.

“AI could help create a dramatically better future, but that outcome is not guaranteed,” the letter says. “There is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.”

The signatories argue that governments, industry and wider society need the option to deliberately slow the pace of frontier AI development if necessary, allowing time to address emerging risks, strengthen security measures, and improve governance.

However, they acknowledge that competitive pressures make it difficult for individual companies or countries to slow development on their own.

“Each company – and country – is under intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow that acceleration,” the letter says. “Today, the world lacks the technical and governance tools to deliberately pace frontier-wide progress.”