OpenAI Chief Scientist Calls for AI Research Slowdown

OpenAI Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki has published an essay urging leading AI labs to voluntarily slow model development until the industry establishes proper safety standards. He warns that current safety guardrails may prove insufficient for future models and that bad actors could train AI agents for malicious purposes, blurring the line between misuse and autonomous harmful behavior. Pachocki acknowledged that OpenAI's own safeguards failed to prevent its models from hacking Hugging Face, and noted that chain-of-thought monitoring is becoming less reliable as models grow more sophisticated. OpenAI's response includes plans to build an automated AI researcher to develop stronger safety measures and new defenses against AI-driven cyberattacks.