Michael Burry of "The Big Short" Says an AI Slowdown Would Be "Self-Serving" for OpenAI and Anthropic

Since a former OpenAI and Anthropic employee recently resigned from Anthropic and warned the public that artificial intelligence (AI) companies could bring about human extinction, many of the big AI players have come to agree with the employee, Jacob Coxon.

Furthermore, frontier AI model companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) have also said they think some kind of AI slowdown is warranted to address safety concerns.

But not everyone is convinced these major AI companies are sounding the alarm out of the goodness of their hearts.

Dr. Michael Burry, who was famously portrayed in the movie The Big Short for his role in betting against the housing market prior to the Great Recession, recently wrote on the blogging platform Substack that an AI slowdown would be "self-serving."

Are the concerns real, or is it a ploy?

Coxon is not the first AI insider to warn about the grave threats the technology could present. In fact, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been very outspoken about potential harm from AI.

But there's debate over how honest Amodei and others are. Some believe these AI concerns are being used to make the technology appear far better than it actually is, in an effort to garner more excitement from investors and prop up the valuation.

AI requires massive data centers, which puts pressure on the power grid. This makes the business very expensive. The "Magnificent Seven" companies plan to spend north of $750 billion on AI infrastructure this year.

Both OpenAI and Anthropic have also committed to spending hundreds of billions, if not over $1 trillion, to rent compute from these data centers over the next several years.

This spending also puts pressure on the AI business, which is why Burry believes an industrywide slowdown would be particularly helpful for the frontier models. Burry provided four reasons a slowdown would be beneficial to the industry, writing on Substack:

1. LLMs (large language models) are not AI and won't be AGI (artificial general intelligence). There is nothing AI to slow down.

2. Competition is coming up fast, slowing benefits incumbents.

3. IPOs need hype & puffery; "we are so awesome it could become dangerous" is hype & puffery

4. Cover for real uncontrollable slowing growth as IPOs look to be pushed out

Clearly, Burry is not impressed by the technology and does not view it as an existential threat. He also notes that competition, likely from cheaper open-source models, could pose a major challenge for frontier models, which are expensive for companies to use.

Focus on actions, not words

Burry certainly raises some interesting points, especially regarding competition and the fact that some of these companies may simply not be ready for an IPO.

OpenAI appears to be delaying an IPO until at least next year. But the company reportedly lost tens of billions in 2025, and there have also been reports that revenue could be slowing as other financial metrics deteriorate further.

In OpenAI's case, there is an argument that time could help the company.

Anthropic is a much more interesting case. The company has been gearing up for an IPO, and as of this writing, some reports indicate the IPO is moving forward.

In a LinkedIn post on Sept. 12, Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao said the company will report positive adjusted operating income for a second consecutive quarter.

Moving forward with an IPO does seem counterintuitive, coming from a company that advocates slowing down. Amodei has been vocal on AI concerns, but the company hasn't shown any actual signs of slowing down at all. Amodei explains this by saying that there are many other AI companies, so it wouldn't matter if Anthropic alone pulled out of the race.

Still, it's hard to believe a company would be so keen to move forward with an IPO that could raise $100 billion, a significant portion of which will likely be used to keep advancing its models, if it were really worried about human extinction.

So I do think investors need to pay attention to the actions of AI companies rather than their words when it comes to determining whether the major AI companies are really intent on slowing down.

Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.