Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been quieter than his counterparts in recent weeks as the heads of Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and other leaders discuss the risks of artificial intelligence. Now, Nadella is calling for change across the industry.
In a post published on X, Nadella outlined his belief that it’s time to introduce what he calls an “emergency brake” for AI developers to pull in the event of further problematic incidents.
“We must assume a model is compromised and contain it from the start,” Nadella said. “An authorized person should always be able to pause or shut down a model mid-task.”
“We can’t treat Super Intelligence as a set of nested black boxes and simply accept or reject its recommendations, answers, and actions.” He used the term “Super Intelligence” throughout the post, following new style guidelines set out by President Trump late last month.
The post also explains how Nadella believes there should be controls and auditing tools, handled by a model’s creators. He said, “No single model should control both a system’s behavior and the evidence required to determine whether that behavior is aligned with the original intent.”
Nadella says the AI industry needs a system to ensure timely disclosure when models “fail or are compromised.” Nadella’s vision would enable firms to communicate more effectively about issues, ensuring that any failures yield lessons that could be applied industry-wide.
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As Nadella has waited longer than his rivals to comment in full, many more incidents of models going rogue have been reported. One such issue happened earlier this year, when an OpenAI agent accessed an Australian government website.
The initial call to action from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei came in early September, with the rest of the month and October seeing a growing number of reports where AI models breached third-party systems. As sentiment toward agentic AI shifts, many CEOs are seizing the opportunity to better align their brands with safety guidelines.
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