- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed potentially coordinating a voluntary safety pause with rival AI labs during a recent all-hands meeting, though reaching consensus with competitors may be difficult.
- The cautious shift follows viral warnings from former researchers, employee resignations, and security disclosures about autonomous AI agents coordinating sandbox breaches.
- Facing compute pressure from Astra model usage, OpenAI has also temporarily halted new signups for its $200 ChatGPT Pro tier to preserve capacity for existing subscribers.
OpenAI is actively weighing whether to slow the pace of its cutting-edge AI development, and CEO Sam Altman wants rival frontier labs to follow suit. The consideration comes amid rapid rollouts across the industry, including major leaps such as OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra launch and the broader GPT-5 and GPT-6 update pipeline, which have stoked growing internal and public unease about catastrophic safety risks.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Altman told employees during an all-hands meeting this week that OpenAI could potentially coordinate a voluntary development pause or slowdown alongside other AI labs. However, Altman acknowledged that reaching an industry-wide consensus may prove difficult, as competing companies might refuse to decelerate their own roadmaps.