LONDON: Warnings of an AI apocalypse are reaching fever pitch. Last week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon shocked the world when he publicly resigned, revealing that the “people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” His remarks were swiftly reinforced by Evan Hubinger, the company’s alignment science lead, who put the probability that AI will kill all humans at more than 10%. Within days, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and other leading AI figures all called for slowing the pace of AI development.
Fears of an AI doomsday scenario have been mounting for some time. Geoffrey Hinton, considered “the godfather of AI,” has long maintained that losing control of superintelligent AI systems could “lead to human extinction.” More recently, Bill Gates has highlighted the threat of AI-induced economic upheaval. And Elon Musk has been calling for a pause in the AI race since at least 2023.
