Nasdaq, S&P 500 Open Lower on Calls for AI Slowdown

A selloff in key artificial intelligence (AI) stocks weighed on the leading U.S. benchmark averages at the start of the trading week.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell about 200 points, or around 0.7 percent, at 10:15 a.m. ET on Sept. 14. The broad-market S&P 500 also erased nearly 40 points, or 0.5 percent.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled about 100 points, or 0.2 percent.

A chorus of AI executives is urging a slowdown in global artificial‑intelligence development, raising concerns that an industrywide pause could send disruptive ripple effects through the broader tech sector.

“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a Sept. 12 essay.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk agrees.

“Dario is right,” the SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO wrote on X.

In an X post, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman echoed Amodei’s comments, supporting a federal framework that outlines “consistent safety requirements for frontier AI.”

Altman warned that AI progress could go “very badly,” causing the world to “lose control of the future of AI” and concentrating too much power around one company or individual.

“No amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness,” Altman said.

Scores of U.S. officials have also requested AI guardrails.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said on X that the revolutionary technology can achieve greatness but also “comes with extraordinary risk.”

“It’s not clear where it will lead but this much is clear: its development should not be steered exclusively by private entities, especially when the CEOs of those companies are calling out for restraint and regulation,” Shapiro said on Sept. 13.

But President Donald Trump again rejected calls to slow AI’s advancement.

Trump, writing on Truth Social, said there is a “sick conspiracy” happening against AI and data centers, “and the only one that is happy about it is China.”

“Whoever wins AI, wins!” he wrote in all caps. “We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”

Despite the latest fears from top AI executives and U.S. officials, market watchers remain optimistic about the industry’s outlook.

Several top AI hyperscalers were down at the start of the trading week. Amazon slipped about 1.5 percent, while SpaceX and Oracle fell 1 percent and 4 percent, respectively. In contrast, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft climbed roughly 2 percent.

Leading AI chipmakers were also deep in the red. Advanced Micro Devices dropped 5 percent, Broadcom lost 4 percent, and Nvidia declined 3 percent.

“What really happened? Surely something big enough to spook Dario, Sam, and Elon into rare agreement. Whatever it was, it was probably stopped at the last minute, just before disaster struck,” Giuseppe Sette, co-founder and president of Reflexivity, told The Epoch Times in an emailed note.

“With China in the race, though, we don’t expect any major slowdown. And as for any retracement in AI stocks, that’s simply a buying opportunity.”

Evan Schlossman, principal at Neostellar Capital, says the current AI rally still has room to grow.

Although OpenAI is not going public until next year, the AI giant recently raised $122 billion, “which proves there’s plenty of capital in the private markets,” he said.

“They just had the largest private capital raise ever, so they have capital and have the ability to raise capital in the private markets so they can use that flexibility to go public when they feel [it] is most accretive for the business,” Schlossman said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.