Speaking to the Today programme on Thursday, Suleyman warned against firms continuing to create AI systems capable of setting their own objectives, earning money and owning assets. In it, he criticised Anthropic for teaching its AI to have human-like qualities, a practice known as anthropomorphising, which he said made it seem as though Claude had its own desires, values and sense of self.

He also warned tech firms risk creating something "impossible" to control by treating the technology like a human." AIs are not conscious," he wrote.

" They do not feel, experience, or suffer. They do not have innate preferences or underlying motivations."

They are sequence completion engines, internally hollow, designed to follow instructions, and accomplish goals set by humans." The question of how much autonomy AI systems should have is increasingly dividing the industry.

Speaking to the BBC about an upcoming AI summit, Suleyman called for "alignment" to create technology that must be "subordinate" to humanity. Alignment is a field which aims to build human ethical ideas and principles into AI.

In other words, it aims to keep it on track with what humans value." I think that the good news here is that everybody who is human is going to have a very strong interest in making sure that the systems that we all create and...

are used around the world in every nation are safe and controllable and subordinate to humanity," he said." Everybody must be aligned."

Microsoft founded its own superintelligence team in October 2025 and the company, much like its rival Anthropic, is also pursuing efforts in advanced AI development. The company's vision of a "humanist" AI highlights the central challenge facing the technology - how to make it more powerful, without losing sight of the values it is meant to serve.