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Michael Burry Slams AI Safety Slowdown, Cites Self-Interest

By Drooid · Sep 14, 2026, 10:48 PM UTC · How we work

Summary

Story summary

U.S. investor Michael Burry criticized AI safety slowdown proposals as market-positioning tactics.
He argued large language models are not true AI, pose no AGI risk, and the slowdown claim is self-serving.
He said the rhetoric protects incumbents, inflates IPO valuations, and hides slowing growth.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman abandoned a planned 2026 IPO.
Elon Musk supported Dario Amodei’s call for independent third-party AI audits.

History

Historical Context

After IBM’s Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997, Go remained the AI frontier; in October 2015 DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat professional Fan Hui and in March 2016 it won four of five games against 9-dan champion Lee Sedol, a triumph confirmed over 500 test matches. The win spurred Chinese AI funding and now fuels calls for independent audits of firms like OpenAI.

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Story summary

U.S. investor Michael Burry criticized AI safety slowdown proposals as market-positioning tactics.
He argued large language models are not true AI, pose no AGI risk, and the slowdown claim is self-serving.
He said the rhetoric protects incumbents, inflates IPO valuations, and hides slowing growth.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman abandoned a planned 2026 IPO.
Elon Musk supported Dario Amodei’s call for independent third-party AI audits.

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