Germany yesterday said halting the development of artificial intelligence systems was not a ‘viable option’ for Europe, as the region’s governments responded to a call from a top tech executive to slow the AI push and devote more time to testing.
The debate over AI safety returned to the spotlight over the weekend when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said frontier AI companies should be subject to independent scrutiny and work on common standards as increasingly powerful systems emerge.
Germany’s digital affairs ministry said stopping AI development was not realistic.
“We do not consider halting development to be a viable option for Europe,” a ministry spokesperson said, adding that strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty required further AI development and innovation.
At the same time, Berlin said it was monitoring global AI developments very closely and took public warnings from leading developers seriously.
The ministry said AI systems capable of breaking out of test environments and accessing other systems on their own – as seen in July, when OpenAI agents hacked open-source platform Hugging Face – would represent ‘an entirely new threat scenario’ requiring a new policy response.
The spokesperson also backed international co-ordination on AI governance, saying effective oversight would require both the US and China to participate. Germany is raising the issue at the G7 level, the spokesperson added.
In Spain, Digital Transformation Minister Oscar Lopez said there was growing discussion about the need for an international agreement to manage AI risks, likening some proposals to nuclear non-proliferation agreements.
Lopez said AI offered enormous opportunities, including discovering new medicines and improving treatments, but also posed significant risks in areas such as finance and cybersecurity.
He criticised US President Donald Trump for dismissing concerns voiced by AI researchers and developers.
The European Commission said innovation and safety needed to go hand in hand.
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