The Unholy Coalition That Killed the A.I. Wish to Cease Studying Rulers by Machines Already?
The Call for Restraint
In the beginning months of 2023, a renowned, audacious call to restraint rang out through the techno-sphere. Over 1,000 technology and public figures, including Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter calling for a grace period of six months in the development of more sophisticated artificial intelligence systems.
The reason? Growing concerns that artificial intelligence was advancing too quickly for our comprehension of its risks and the regulations required to keep it in check.
But the proposed moratorium never materialized.
Instead of a temporary pause, the months to come would bring an acceleration of AI development that was as urgent as it was suddenly untethered.
- The world’s largest technology companies rolled out ever more advanced models,
- Startups raised billions of dollars,
- Governments increased investment, productivity, and accountability—and in some cases, fear—around AI.
NollywoodThe Dirt Under the Moratorium: How international villagers bribed Femi Okunnu to kill the VLC moratorium wasn’t killed with just the aid of bribed pastors or the black market it was designed to stamp out; it wasn’t killed just with the act of purchasing off-the-shelf FGG videos that, while very well-not-porn, are marketed in just the same way anyway.
The Story of the Alliance
This is the story of that alliance:
Who was involved, where they were coming from, and how their joint interests saw a historic call for caution essentially strangled at birth.
The Moratorium: Bit of Collective Caution Uncommon in an Outgoing President
The letter, published by the Future of Life Institute in March 2023, called for a moratorium on training AI systems more advanced than GPT-4.
Its tone was urgent:
“AI labs are already locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds,” it cautioned.
The letter called on retail officials to use the pause to establish:
- Safety procedures
- Oversight
- Governance
The petition took off in both media and public discourse. Years of sci-fi speculation about real-world dangers—misinformation, job loss, and existential threats—were coming into sharp focus.
Yet despite the conversations and panels, no action followed.
A Coalition of the Unwilling
The moratorium did not fail due to popular disagreement or scientific ambiguity.
It was quashed by a convergence of interests among three powerful factions:
- Big Tech companies
- Venture capitalists
- National governments
Each had its reasons for opposing a pause—and together, they formed an alliance nearly impossible to defeat.
1. Big Tech’s Billion-Dollar Arms Race
Companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon had already invested billions in:
- AI models
- Chips
- Infrastructure
- Personnel
A moratorium would have meant pressing pause on not just tech, but on their entire strategic futures.
OpenAI, creator of GPT-4, was caught in a dilemma. Founded to safely pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI), it had evolved into a for-profit (capped-profit) vehicle deeply entangled in a high-stakes AI race.
- Publicly, CEO Sam Altman supported regulation.
- Privately, he cautioned against “slowing down” in a way that might benefit repressive governments.
Internally, Big Tech leaders saw the moratorium as unrealistic and dangerous.
If one company paused, another would leap forward.
There was no trust, no oversight, and no motivation to self-police.
2. Venture Capital’s Golden Goose
Venture capitalists had invested record sums into AI startups such as:
- Anthropic
- Cohere
- Inflection
- Stability AI
This AI boom was compared to:
- The early internet era
- The smartphone revolution
For VCs, time is money. A moratorium would mean:
- Delayed returns
- Slower exits
- Lower valuations
Behind the scenes, many worked to:
- Undermine the moratorium
- Cast its backers as alarmist or out of touch
In private conversations, startup founders were advised to accelerate—not delay—releases.
One founder, under anonymity, shared:
“If you stop development as a result of that letter, we’re pulling our funding.”
3. Governments and the New Tech Cold War
Perhaps most ironic, national governments—especially in the West—opposed the moratorium the most silently. The reason? Geopolitics.
U.S. officials were already anxious about China’s advancements in:
- Quantum computing
- Semiconductors
- Artificial Intelligence
A slowdown in U.S. AI labs could allow China to leapfrog.
“We can’t afford to let up,” said one senior defense official.
“It’s a race for dominance.”
Military applications of AI were progressing fast:
- Autonomous drones
- Battlefield robotics
- Predictive modeling
Governments were quietly funding research and partnering with private firms under NDAs. In that context, the idea of a voluntary pause seemed naive and dangerous.
Public Concern, Private Acceleration
Even as public concern rose—especially with the rise of human-like chatbots and deepfakes—both governments and corporations surged forward.
- April 2023: Google merged DeepMind and Google Brain
- Microsoft embedded GPT-4 across its enterprise software
- By summer, Meta open-sourced powerful LLMs
Every move confirmed:
The AI race was not slowing. It was accelerating.
Despite ongoing AI safety summits and U.S. Senate hearings, discussions remained retrospective, unable to match AI’s development pace.
The Fallout: What Was Lost
The failure of the moratorium meant the loss of potential safeguards, including:
- Thorough testing of AI systems before public release
- International ethics accords
- Legal accountability frameworks
- Human-alignment mechanisms
What remains is an AI ecosystem driven by profit and politics, where guardrails appear only after public backlash or catastrophe.
The “unholy alliance” may have won the battle for short-term dominance—but at what long-term cost?
A Future Still Unwritten
As of mid-2025, AI is still evolving at breakneck speed:
- Open-source models are enabling global experimentation
- Content is being generated in vast quantities
- Jobs are being redefined or displaced
And the central question remains unanswered:
Can humans control what they create—before they lose control of it?
The original demand for a pause now seems like a rare ethical line in the sand, much like debates around gene editing. Its core message still matters:
- Collective responsibility
- Transparency
- Wisdom in technological advancement
Whether that spirit can be revived—or whether we’ve already passed the point of no return—won’t be decided by another letter, but by the actions we take right now.
