AI SLOWDOWN

Nvidia shares slipped 1% Wednesday, leaving the chipmaker 8% below the high it hit in May, Investopedia reported. Weeks of selling had already hammered AI-related stocks.

The pressure had been building. An Anthropic executive told the BBC on Monday that AI capability is growing "by the day" and said a kill switch should be mandatory for advanced systems.

Days earlier, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei had called for slower AI development. Then he defended the industry's pace, speaking at a Salesforce conference in San Francisco, the BBC reported. Companies should tighten safety practices and set shared standards, he said, rather than attack competitors. "Let's make our practices better, let's recommit to transparency, let's invest more in safety," he said, according to the BBC.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, at the same event, rejected new regulation. AI firms should judge for themselves when a product is safe to release, he said. "We don't need new laws or regulations," Huang said, the BBC reported.

The debate spread to Washington too. Senator Bernie Sanders urged the US to negotiate a treaty with China pausing development of "AI superintelligence," the BBC reported. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon addressed the same summit, a rare pairing of a progressive Democrat and a Trump ally on one stage. Trump dismissed fears of an AI takeover as a "hoax" earlier in the week, per the BBC.

This isn't hypothetical. The Bank of England warned in its latest financial stability report that a price correction in AI stocks could cut UK economic output by 2.2%, TechRadar reported.

Crypto shares fell too, for a different reason. Coinbase and Circle Internet dropped as Treasury yields hit a 52-week high, a bond-market move separate from the AI debate, 24/7 Wall St reported.

Nvidia reports earnings next Wednesday, and investors are watching closely. Wall Street expects strong results, Investopedia reported, even after the stock's pullback from its spring peak.

Huang, for his part, told the industry to keep moving unless something feels wrong.

"Run as fast as you can," he said, "but if at any time you feel it's not in control, take a pause."