Microsoft CEO’s AI Warning Draws Little Reaction From Cybersecurity Stocks

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called for stronger AI safeguards, but cybersecurity stocks showed little reaction Monday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Key Points

• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called for a step back to assess the trust architecture for artificial intelligence.
• Nadella said an authorized person should always be able to shut down an AI model mid-task like an emergency brake.
• Cybersecurity stocks showed no broad rally and traded mixed on Monday following Nadella’s comments.

Plenty of top tech executives have sounded the alarm about artificial intelligence this fall—and the market is getting sick of it.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella joined them on Saturday, warning in a post on X that it was “time to step back and assess the trust architecture for this new era.”

“We must assume a model is compromised and contain it from the start,” he added. “Think of it like an emergency brake. An authorized person should always be able to shut down a model mid-task.”

His comments follow a sharper market reaction to earlier AI warnings. Cast your mind back to mid-September, when the bosses of Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX all called for a slowdown in AI development —triggering a selloff in chip and memory stocks.

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Less than a month later, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is trading close to a record high —a fitting way to mark the four-year anniversary of the bull market sparked by OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT.

Cybersecurity stocks showed no broad rally following Nadella’s comments, trading mixed on Monday.

Cloudflare dropped 1.1%, CrowdStrike slid 0.8%, and Palo Alto Networks declined 0.7% in early trading. Fortinet climbed 0.2%.

Microsoft’s own shares also weren’t doing much, ticking up 0.3% to $536.66. As of Friday’s close, they were up 11% for the year.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com

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