The frontier of artificial intelligence is advancing at an alarming speed. Over the weekend, industry leaders voiced support for an idea that the American people and many AI researchers in their own labs have been calling for: We must responsibly slow the pace of frontier AI development. A slowdown is critical in order to ensure AI serves the public interest. Pacing AI development does not mean giving up on this technology’s potential to produce life-saving benefits in fields like medicine — some of which we are already seeing. Rather, it is about setting up sensible guardrails so that AI does not completely escape human control and endanger our safety and collective future. This moment demands the leadership of the United States government. Congress must work at an urgent pace to pass new laws and establish a new federal entity to provide oversight and independent testing for this technology, to ensure accountability, and to protect our wellbeing. We need cooperation at an international level as well. The United States must continue to lead the world in developing AI technology even as we seek to impose common-sense safety standards. This means that the president must do his job to protect America’s interests by pursuing a treaty with countries like China to stop dangerous uses of AI, limit the speed of its development, and adopt global standards for testing.