AI-linked stocks slide after tech bosses call for slowdown in ‘reckless’ development

Shares in chipmaker Nvidia were down 3% by early afternoon in New York. Photograph: VCG/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenShares in chipmaker Nvidia were down 3% by early afternoon in New York. Photograph: VCG/Getty ImagesAI (artificial intelligence)AI-linked stocks slide after tech bosses call for slowdown in ‘reckless’ developmentDonald Trump dismisses attempts to increase controls on artificial intelligence as ‘sick conspiracy’

AI-linked stocks tumbled on Monday after the bosses of Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX called for a slowdown in AI “reckless” development, citing fears the technology could soon run out of control.

Shares in the semiconductor designer Nvidia – the world’s most valuable company – were down 3.3% by market closing in New York City, while Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) slid 4% and Micron Technology and Sandisk shares slumped by 5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index fund was down 0.5% by the end of the day.

The sell-off came after the chief executive of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, appealed at the weekend for the AI industry to “slow down”.

However, Donald Trump dismissed calls to increase controls on AI as a “sick conspiracy”.

The president added that his administration had “stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!)”.

Trump offered a similar assessment when he called Nvidia chief, Jensen Huang, while the executive was on stage at an AI conference in California on Monday.

“It’s a hoax,” Trump said via speaker phone to the audience. “The robots are not going to be taking over the world. That’s not going to happen.”

The UN security council, meanwhile, is planning to hold a meeting on AI next week as international concern rises, Agence France-Presse reported on Monday.

Shares in SoftBank, a Japanese investor that is a big backer of OpenAI, slumped 13%, while the South Korean Kospi stock index, which relies heavily on chipmakers that supply AI companies, dropped by 3%.

Shares in the big global microchip supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company dropped 1.2%.

In Europe, shares in the Dutch tech manufacturer ASML, Europe’s biggest company by value and an important supplier for the semiconductor industry, slumped by 6%.