{"id":886446,"date":"2026-09-10T03:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T03:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886446\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T03:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T03:42:13","slug":"ai-could-kill-all-humans-in-next-decade-warn-experts-but-how-seriously-should-we-take-them-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886446\/","title":{"rendered":"AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts: but how seriously should we take them? | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does artificial superintelligence really pose a risk greater than nuclear weapons? Is there a significant chance of \u201ca Chornobyl-sized catastrophe\u201d. Might there even be a greater than 10% chance that AI could \u201ckill all humans\u201d in the next decade?<\/p>\n

These warnings were issued over the past 48 hours on both sides of the Atlantic about the potential impact of a technology that most people still think of as a more talkative search engine.<\/p>\n

Some of the threats were raised in the UK as MPs and peers began to wrestle with the danger of AI outperforming human capabilities. The nuclear warnings came from Des Browne, a former defence secretary, and Prof Stuart Russell, an eminent Berkeley computer scientist.<\/p>\n

Beatrice Fihn, who won the 2017 Nobel peace prize for leading the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told parliamentarians: \u201cIt is not the first time we\u2019re confronted with abilities that could end up killing us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The session on Monday was convened by Control AI, a lobbying group pushing for international regulation of the technology. It is backing a bill tabled in parliament this week by the Labour MP Alex Sobel and aimed at banning the creation of artificial superintelligence (ASI).<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, a senior employee at Anthropic admitted he believed there was a greater than 10% chance the technology could \u201ckill all humans\u201d in the next decade and warned that his AI company did not have a plan to ensure ASI was aligned, meaning it did no harm. Predictions for when ASI<\/a> might be reached vary from several years to more than a decade.<\/p>\n

Evan Hubinger, alignment science lead at Anthropic<\/a>, posted the comment after Jacob Coxon, a 28-year-old researcher at the San Francisco company and previously at OpenAI, resigned, claiming \u201cneither company was acting responsibly\u201d. He said they were \u201cgambling with our lives\u201d.<\/p>\n

Coxon said the risks at Anthropic were well understood but they were \u201clocked in a race to get there first\u201d. In a glimmer of hope, he added that he was optimistic about the potential for coordination between US labs on pacing their progress in the race.<\/p>\n

Anthropic has been approached for comment on the issue. OpenAI<\/a> pointed to a statement from its chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, who said last week: \u201cInternational coordination on future AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The push for wider coordination to control ASI was at the heart of events at Westminster this week. According to the Financial Times, government officials voiced concern that Anthropic had declined to submit its latest model \u2013 Mythos 5.1 \u2013 to the UK\u2019s AI Security Institute for pre-release testing.<\/p>\n

Only a few US organisations have had access to Mythos 5.1, the Cabinet Office confirmed. A spokesperson added: \u201cThe AI Security Institute continues to collaborate closely with industry partners, including Anthropic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Labour MP Darren Jones has written to world leaders to call for a multinational treaty to ensure AI is developed safely. Photograph: Linda Nylind\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The Labour MP Darren Jones has written to the prime minister, Andy Burnham, and the heads of the UN and the OECD calling for a \u201cmultinational treaty for the regulated and safe development of superintelligence \u2013 not a ban on innovation or scientific endeavour but a safety-first approach to the rapid development of this technology\u201d.<\/p>\n

Citing Coxon\u2019s resignation, Jones added: \u201cThe debate ranges from the end of humanity to claims of \u2018marketing hype\u2019. Either way, governments must now step in.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other side of the Atlantic, Bernie Sanders ratcheted up his AI safety campaign this week by again calling on Congress to regulate the technology. He pointed to polling suggesting that 81% of Americans believed their politicians should take action.<\/p>\n

The independent senator for Vermont said: \u201cWe can\u2019t allow a handful of greedy people to play God and determine the future of humanity \u2013 our economy, environment, democracy, privacy and more \u2013 without public input.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The US senator Bernie Sanders wants Congress to regulate the \u2018greedy\u2019 AI industry. Photograph: Linda Nylind\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

ControlAI is funded by Jaan Tallinn, the multi-billionaire founder of Skype who calls himself an \u201canti-extinctionist\u201d. He has dedicated part of his fortune to campaigning for AI safety and says some senior AI executives would be happy for humanity to be wiped out.<\/p>\n

Despite being an early investor in Anthropic and Google DeepMind, two of the leading AI labs, Tallinn estimates that 10-15% of AI employees believe the technology will be a worthy successor to humanity.<\/p>\n

He said in an interview earlier this summer: \u201cA fairly known AI researcher said to me \u2018Jaan, don\u2019t worry about this. Humans are a disposable species\u2019. From what I understand he was fine with becoming extinct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tallinn\u2019s lobby group ran the session for MPs and peers at Westminster on Monday and urged them to back measures to curb the most powerful AI models. On every chair was a copy of the book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI.<\/p>\n

The politicians heard from Russell, who made the Chornobyl warning and said: \u201cThe other possibility is a much larger catastrophe, in which humanity loses control irreversibly. But we have no say over whether we continue to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Browne said that when he was defence secretary he thought nuclear war was the most likely threat facing humanity. Now he believed \u201ca superintelligent AI poses a threat on the same, possibly, a greater scale\u201d.<\/p>\n

Other contributors were more cautious. Dr Andrew Rogoyski, of the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI, said: \u201cIn reality, these systems are nowhere near as versatile as humans, let alone humans acting collectively. I suspect we\u2019re heading towards \u2018the great disappointment\u2019 where advanced AI turns out to be too expensive and not useful enough to continue in its current form.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Barber, director of Sofair, a state-backed AI research lab combining academics from Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and UCL, said he was worried about people \u201cthrowing the baby out with the bathwater\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is not going to go away,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly useful, whether or not you allow it in a fully unconstrained way to access the internet and various systems that\u2019s potentially problematic. We may need to learn how to better control these things. There are vulnerabilities in the software frameworks that need to be patched. But that\u2019s doable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we need as a country is to get to grips with the duality that is both an incredibly important and useful technology, and at the same time, it\u2019s something that needs to be carefully thought about and carefully controlled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandra Wachter, a professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, said she did not believe in \u201cTerminator scenarios\u201d but that AI posed real threats including its environmental impact, spreading of misinformation and replacing jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese problems are real and urgent and need addressing now,\u201d she said. \u201cTerminator scenarios are a big distraction from real issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gary Marcus, an AI industry commentator and academic, said: \u201cThere is a difference between superintelligence that is aligned (if such a thing is possible) and superintelligence that is not.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is at least conceivable that the former might be net positive. So far we have neither, but a superabundance of hype combined with a striking lack of prudence on OpenAI\u2019s part has gotten us where we are, with intense mistrust all around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Does artificial superintelligence really pose a risk greater than nuclear weapons? Is there a significant chance of \u201ca…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-886446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}