Pacing the Frontier, a statement by employees of frontier AI companies

The document exists. The ledger fetched it at its publisher and quotes it.

Record ID

DKT-2026-0001

Kind

Letter or statement

Jurisdiction

United States

Last verified

16 September 2026

Added

16 September 2026

• The single ask is that the US government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.
• The statement does not call for a pause or a slowdown now; it asks that the tools to pace exist when they are needed.
• pacingthefrontier.com printed 1,386 signatories on 16 September 2026, listing employees of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, Thinking Machines, Safe Superintelligence and Google.
• TechTimes reported on 29 July 2026 that OpenAI issued a corporate statement backing the letter and that Anthropic co founder Jack Clark reposted the company's endorsement; the count that day was 1,268.
• The site names two nonprofit endorsers, Guidelight AI Standards and Encode AI.

Binding, Stage, What it would require, What it does not do, Who is for it, Who is against it, Next step on the record. Stated means the document you can open below says it; silent means the ledger read the document and it does not.

BindingStated

No: a statement binds nobody, including the two companies that endorsed it.Pacing the Frontier, the statement and signatory list, primary source, 28 July 2026.

StageStated

Published 28 July 2026 and open for signatures on 16 September 2026.Pacing the Frontier, the statement and signatory list, primary source, 28 July 2026.

What it would requireStated

Nothing of any company. It asks the US government to support building pacing tools through an international effort.Pacing the Frontier, the statement and signatory list, primary source, 28 July 2026.

What it does not doStated

It does not ask for a pause, a slowdown or a ban, and it names no capability threshold.Pacing the Frontier, the statement and signatory list, primary source, 28 July 2026.

Who is for itStated

Signatories at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Meta; OpenAI and Anthropic as companies on 29 July 2026; Guidelight AI Standards and Encode AI.TechTimes, OpenAI, Anthropic formally back plan to slow AI that writes its own code, secondary source, 29 July 2026.

Who is against itOpen

No named opposition to this statement was found. The counter positions on the docket answer the later pause calls: DKT-2026-0011, DKT-2026-0012 and DKT-2026-0016.

Next step on the recordSilent

No reply from the US government to the statement was found on 16 September 2026.Pacing the Frontier, the statement and signatory list, primary source, 28 July 2026.

1. 1,386 signatories

   Signatories printed on the statement site

   Pacing the Frontier, the statement and signatory list, primary source, as of 16 September 2026.

2. 1,268 signatories

   Signatories reported on the day the companies endorsed

   TechTimes, OpenAI, Anthropic formally back plan to slow AI that writes its own code, secondary source, as of 29 July 2026.

Read the ask before you cite it. This statement is the mildest instrument on the docket: it requests tools, not a stop, and it commits its signatories to nothing. If a vendor or a board paper cites it as an industry call for a pause, that is a misreading of the text. What it does establish is that a large body of frontier lab staff put their names to the idea that pacing should be possible, which is the premise every later instrument here builds on.

1. Pacing the Frontier, the statement and signatory listPrimary · 28 July 2026
2. TechTimes, OpenAI, Anthropic formally back plan to slow AI that writes its own codeSecondary · 29 July 2026

• VerifiedLetter or statementDKT-2026-0005

  Dario Amodei's essay We Must Pace the Frontier and Anthropic's evaluator commitment

  United States · verified 16 September 2026

  The essay's thesis sentence: we must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. It states that pacing does not mean halting model training or technical progress.

• VerifiedLab commitmentDKT-2026-0003

  OpenAI's two week pause in reinforcement learning training on its latest models

  United States · verified 16 September 2026

  OpenAI's post of 18 August 2026, Pacing model development in an era of cyber-critical capabilities, and its X post of the same day state the two week RL pause on models intended for deployment and the largest frontier RL run on hold.

• VerifiedLab commitmentDKT-2026-0017

  Anthropic's When AI builds itself: the option to slow or pause, conditional on verifiable peers

  United States · verified 16 September 2026

  Anthropic's text: it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up.

• VerifiedLetter or statementDKT-2026-0018

  Pause Giant AI Experiments, the Future of Life Institute open letter of 2023

  Global · verified 16 September 2026

  The ask: all AI labs immediately pause for at least six months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, publicly and verifiably.

• VerifiedCounter positionDKT-2026-0020

  Gary Marcus, why I oppose the Sanders-Casar Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act

  United States · verified 16 September 2026

  Published 3 September 2026 under the title The new Sanders-Casar Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act and why I oppose it.

• Reported, primary not reachedLetter or statementDKT-2026-0019

  Jacob Coxon's resignation from Anthropic and his call to stop accelerating recursive self improvement

  United States · verified 16 September 2026

  Time reported on 9 September 2026 that Coxon resigned on 8 September and that his post on X is at x.com/hilbertspaess; the post itself was not fetched by this ledger.