Europe doubts US AI safety warnings, calling them a move to keep market power

US AI executives Amodei, Altman and Musk have warned about AI risks and called for slowing development. But European companies and officials are skeptical. French startup Mistral said some market players are using this moment to lock in their position and push rules that favor themselves over rivals.

Europe has few frontier AI developers and relies heavily on models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft. Proton's COO said the warnings are self-serving, aimed at keeping reliance on their services. Germany's Black Forest Labs warned that artificial thresholds would hurt open innovation.

However, Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue opposed slowing AI down, saying now is the time to speed up. A German professor called the plan "regulatory capture." EU Commission President von der Leyen said EU AI rules give Europe global influence. Germany's digital ministry said stopping AI is unrealistic and Europe should focus on closing the tech gap.