Nasdaq futures opened this Monday with a decline of more than 1.50%, in a move that reflects the risk aversion climate that has settled in markets after calls from tech leaders for a slowdown in artificial intelligence development. The drop is being led by chip manufacturers, with Nvidia retreating about 3% and CoreWeave, Arm Holdings and Marvell losing 6% in pre-market trading.
The alert was issued by Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, who in an essay posted on social media platform X on Saturday argued that AI companies should slow the pace of advancing their models' capabilities. Elon Musk, leader of xAI, and Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, expressed agreement with this position. The episode comes days after an Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, resigned stating he believes AI could threaten humanity's survival before the end of the decade.
Security concerns have also led OpenAI to review its plans: Sam Altman told Fortune magazine that the company is unlikely to proceed with an initial public offering this year, possibly delaying the operation until 2027. Anthropic, meanwhile, maintains its intention to proceed with a Nasdaq listing this fall. Anthropic also acknowledged that clients used Claude to try to develop biological weapons.
The risk aversion was felt with particular intensity in Asia, where SoftBank shares fell almost 11% and the South Korean Kospi index sank 3.3%, penalized by a 6.4% drop in SK Hynix. To this pressure is added the rise in oil prices, with Brent trading near $108 per barrel, which reinforces expectations of a more restrictive decision from the Federal Reserve at Wednesday's meeting, with bets on a rate hike increasing to 86%.
