Derek Thompson says Anthropic's leaders should stop narrating recursive self improvement like traffic news and commit to specific red lines
Anthropic's leaders need to stop commenting on the emergence of RSI like a local news anchor reporting on traffic on the 101, and acknowledge that they are the traffic, and they're not going to build something that they don't want to exist. They should move beyond "pacing" language, commit to specific policies and red lines, explain why those lines are red, and then use that costly signal to build an international consensus around norms. It's not that I trust the CCP, or that I think global lab monitoring and verification is imminent. But the status quo is absurd. You've got US lab leaders writing (or favorably quote-tweeting) essays about slowing down while simultaneously saying "things are moving faster and faster" and "btw, our internal models finished mathematics on Tuesday, next up: physics." The effect is the equivalent of Usain Bolt winning race after race while using his press conferences to bemoan the dangerous speed of modern sprinting on one's legs so would everybody please try a little less hard next race, and then ... breaking his 100m record again the following month. Honestly ask yourself: If you were China, why would you take this pausing/pacing stuff seriously?
Context
Thompson voices a growing critique that labs warn about the speed of AI while racing ahead, a tension that will shape how seriously the public and China take calls to slow down.
Derek Thompson is a writer and podcast host formerly at The Atlantic. His post quotes Rob Wiblin's report of Jack Clark's new 2027 forecast for recursive self improvement, covered in story 18. This is opinion.
Deep dive
On October 13, Derek Thompson posted that Anthropic's leaders need to stop commenting on the emergence of RSI like a local news anchor reporting on traffic on the 101, and acknowledge that they are the traffic, and they're not going to build something that they don't want to exist.
He wrote that they should move beyond pacing language, commit to specific policies and red lines, explain why those lines are red, and then use that costly signal to build an international consensus around norms.
Thompson said he does not trust the Chinese Communist Party or think global monitoring of AI labs is imminent, but called the status quo absurd. He wrote that US lab leaders write or favorably share essays about slowing down while saying things are moving faster and faster, and joked that they also say their internal models finished mathematics on Tuesday, next up physics.
He compared it to Usain Bolt winning race after race while complaining about the dangerous speed of modern sprinting, then breaking his own record again, and asked: If you were China, why would you take this pausing and pacing stuff seriously?
His post responded to Clark's newsletter, in which Clark moved his forecast for full recursive self improvement to 2027.
What to expect next
Watch whether Anthropic or other labs respond by naming concrete red lines or commitments, as Thompson demands, rather than general warnings about speed.
Also watch whether this critique spreads among commentators and policymakers, and whether it affects talks on international AI norms with China. Any public reply from Jack Clark or Anthropic's leadership would show whether the company accepts the criticism or sees its warnings as a separate duty from its work.