Reid Hoffman dismisses AI doomers: 'Look at me, I'm Cassandra'

Sep 17, 2026 02:36 AM - 1 hour ago 1

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman Bloomberg/Getty Images

Reid Hoffman isn't present for your return astir AI is going to termination everyone.

"I really deliberation astir of that stuff, if you really really deliberation astir it, is truthful for illustration distant and controllable that it is mostly wherever group are benignant of like, 'Look astatine me, I'm Cassandra, I'm saying it's the extremity of time," Hoffman said during Politico's Decoded Summit successful Washington connected Wednesday.

Hoffman said location are benefits to continuing frontier AI research, including really the exertion tin thief reside biosecurity and cybersecurity risks.

"I don't deliberation that slowing down is important, because erstwhile you get to the defense against biorisk, the defense against cyber risk, and creating economical prosperity is simply a reason, I think, to support going," he said.

The LinkedIn cofounder said it's a morganatic disapproval to mobility why the leaders of Anthropic and OpenAI are now calling for a slowdown successful frontier AI investigation astatine a infinitesimal erstwhile some companies look to beryllium starring the world.

"You're successful the lead, you tin slow down anytime you like," Hoffman said.

Instead of slowing down, Hoffman stressed that "it's really important" that frontier labs decently negociate recursive self-improvement.

Some successful the AI manufacture are concerned that recursive self-improvement, the process by which AI tin study to build itself and yet its successors, could unlock a way to exponential maturation that exemplary makers mightiness not beryllium capable to afloat control.

Jacob Coxon, the erstwhile Anthropic interrogator whose viral resignation helped catalyze the existent conversation, wrote connected Tuesday nighttime that Anthropic "largely initiated" the title to recursive self-improvement.

Over the weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for frontier AI labs "to pace" their developments and to usage the clip to amended align AI models. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman later expressed statement pinch Amodei's wide aims.

In an effort he published connected Wednesday, Hoffman said that Amodei and Altman's calls were steps "in the correct direction."

Not everyone is pushing for a unified response.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote connected Tuesday nighttime that companies tin slow down individually without immoderate benignant of industry-wide pact that Amodei wants.

"Every laboratory has the work and inducement to move astatine the gait required to train its models safely," Zuckerberg wrote connected X.

Zuckerberg said that Meta delayed the merchandise of Muse, its AI supplier built by its Superintelligence Labs team, by months to fortify the model's information and security.

"We didn't telephone for everyone other to do this earlier we would," Zuckerberg said. "We conscionable did it."

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Brent D. Griffiths

Brent Griffiths is simply a elder newsman astatine Business Insider who covers AI and tech.Previously, he worked astatine the Washington Post arsenic a interrogator connected Power Up and the Finance 202. He started his profession astatine Politico wherever he worked connected the web accumulation squad and covered breaking news. His passion for covering authorities has only grown since he trim his teeth covering the statesmanlike run arsenic a student journalist. He's besides contributed to the Almanac of American Politics.

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