A selloff in chipmakers dragged down stocks after leaders of artificial-intelligence giants proposed slowing the technology’s development, with a rally in oil also weighing on sentiment.
From the US to Europe and Asia, semiconductor shares came under heavy pressure. American powerhouses Nvidia and Broadcom slumped.
A closely watched industry gauge sank 5 per cent. The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.3 per cent. Brent crude topped $108, raising concern about inflationary pressures in the countdown to this week’s Federal Reserve decision. Short-term Treasury yields rose.
A 3,800-word missive by Anthropic PBC Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei – which was endorsed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk – said development of the most-advanced systems must be slowed in order to prevent AI slipping beyond human control and inflicting catastrophic harm.
On Monday, Microsoft’s AI researchers have released a new set of guiding tenets that they say boil down to five words: People matter more than AI.
If the latest developments push out the timing of promised AI returns, it makes sense that investors would become less enthusiastic, according to Matt Maley at Miller Tabak.
While US industry leaders are not advocating a full pause, the latest commentary suggests that safety considerations could, and should, slow the pace of frontier AI development, according to Justin Post and Nitin Bansal at Bank of America.
“We believe concerns on AI deployment could be a sentiment negative for the AI value chain,” they wrote. “Despite potential concerns, we continue to believe AI capacity will have strong multi-year demand.”
At HSBC, Max Kettner says calls for a slower AI buildout and resulting fears for the tech sector are “overblown.”
This could actually help profitability of AI companies eventually, he said.
“Fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance and serve the interests of no one,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular briefing in Beijing on Monday.
Traders also kept a close eye on the latest geopolitical developments.
