Chip stocks down: AMD, Nvidia, Intel, and Sandisk lead market selloff after AI bosses call for a pause

Shares of major semiconductor companies fell in premarket trading on Monday, leading a broader stock market selloff as investors digested statements from AI leaders over the weekend about the need to slow down AI development due to safety concerns. Advanced Micro Devices Inc (Nasdaq: AMD), Intel Corp (Nasdaq: INTC), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM), and Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) were all trading lower as of early Monday morning. AI bosses do the safety dance On Saturday, Dario Amodei, CEO of Claude maker Anthropic, published a 4,000-word open letter titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” in which he argued that artifical intelligence was advancing to the point where it would soon be difficult for humans to control. Soon after Amodei’s essay was published, it was quickly endorsed by leaders of other AI tech giants, including Sam Altman of OpenAI, who posted on X “I agree with Dario.” Over on LinkedIn, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, wrote a lengthy post espousing a similar idea. “Any pursuit of superintelligence has to be grounded in the core principle that if the AI we build is not helping humanity and under human control, it’s not worth pursuing,” Nade…