Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued against slowing artificial intelligence development at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, hours after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei renewed his call for the industry to pace itself.
Amodei spoke first, appearing with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff before about 12,000 people at the Moscone Center. His appearance followed an essay he published over the weekend urging AI firms to temper the speed of model development. He drew an automotive analogy, saying a safety failure at one company should prompt every firm to review its own record rather than attack a competitor.
“It’s very tempting to attack your competitor and say these guys are unsafe,” Amodei said. “But I think the more responsible way to respond to it is to say, let’s look at our own record.”
Amodei outlined a three-step approach: embedding third-party evaluators inside AI companies, coordinating safety standards among democratic countries, and eventually broader global coordination. He said Anthropic has committed to independent evaluators and would open a dialogue with the rest of the industry on the remaining steps.
Huang appeared with Benioff shortly after and pushed back. He rejected the idea that speed and safety are opposed.
“It’s a false choice,” Huang told Benioff. “You could definitely have both at the same time.” He advised developers to “run as fast as you can” but to pause if a product appears unsafe.
Altman, speaking with Benioff later in the day, said safety and monitoring must come before capabilities. “There should be no qualifier on that,” he said, criticising firms that pledge responsibility only if rivals act responsibly.