AI-connected stocks fell sharply in early Asian trading on Monday after the CEOs of the companies developing the most advanced AI models warned the pace of development must slow to prevent threats to humanity.Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on AI companies to slow the rate at which they advance model capabilities amid mounting fears of misuse of artificial intelligence. Both Elon Musk, who runs xAI, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said that they agree with Amodei.
Altman later said OpenAI would not proceed with an IPO this year, citing safety concerns.
Shares in OpenAI investor SoftBank tumbled as much as 13.2% as trading began in Japan alongside an initial 9.8% plunge for memory chipmaker Kioxia and a 3.7% decline for chip supply chain company Tokyo Electron.
In Taipei, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company slipped 1.2%, while in South Korea SK Hynix slid 5.3% and Samsung Electronics fell 3.7%.
"Selling pressure is likely to hit AI and semiconductor-related stocks in Tokyo following a series of weekend comments calling for a slowdown in the pace of AI development," Takayuki Miyajima, senior economist at Sony Financial Group, said in a note.
