{"id":670341,"date":"2026-10-30T23:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T23:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/670341\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T23:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T23:50:08","slug":"google-researcher-stops-saving-for-retirement-certain-of-ai-driven-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/670341\/","title":{"rendered":"Google researcher stops saving for retirement, certain of AI-driven extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Google AI expert is so convinced artificial intelligence<\/a> will wipe out humanity that he\u2019s stopped saving for retirement.<\/p>\n

Machine learning researcher Nate Soares, who has worked as a software engineer at Google and Microsoft, said in a recent podcast episode with the CEO of The Atlantic <\/a>that AI is more likely than not to wipe out humanity within the next decade.<\/p>\n

Former Google AI safety expert Nate Soares discusses artificial intelligence\u2019s danger. Youtube\/@NicholasThompson<\/p>\n

Soares pegs the possibility of AI-driven extinction at over 50 percent over the next ten years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess right now it looks like we probably don\u2019t have a decade on the clock,\u201d Soares continued, adding that it\u2019s \u201cmore than 50% that we don\u2019t have a decade at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A decade ago, he said he stopped putting money toward his retirement, driven by this belief.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not save for retirement now,\u201d Soares said. \u201cI have a 401K from when I worked at Google, but I haven\u2019t contributed to it for like a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soares is currently the president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, a Berkeley nonprofit known for promoting \u201cAI doomerism,\u201d which is the belief that developing superintelligent AI will likely result in human extinction.<\/p>\n

AI will destroy all of humanity, Soares said. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Soares compared everyday living with this fear of AI extinction to the fear of living with nuclear annihilation during the podcast interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s maybe the first time that we lived under the shadow of every human dying at once, but personally, we\u2019ve always lived under the shadow of plague, shadow of war,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd what you do is you do what you can and then you live a good life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google faces mounting federal scrutiny over its business practices. bennymarty \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Soares said he lives by doing everything he can to stop human extinction from AI, which he adds he does not think is \u201cinevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The host, Nicholas Thompson, later presses on Soares on Thompson\u2019s own skepticism of the idea AI will destroy us all. Thompson notes that there are still a lot of bumps and limitations on even the most advanced AI technology currently available.<\/p>\n

Former Google AI safety expert Nate Soares works on artificial intelligence alignment. Instagram\/@nateasoares<\/p>\n

Soares then compared the technology\u2019s rise to cars gradually replacing horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could imagine a lot of horses looking at the development of the car and saying, \u201cWell, there\u2019s all these things the car can\u2019t do yet,’\u201d Soares told Thompson. \u201cWe are seeing AIs get better and better at things. We\u2019re seeing them able to take on longer and longer tasks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soares clarifies he\u2019s not an \u201cAI jobs apocalypse guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an \u2018AI kills all humans\u2019 guy, in which case you\u2019ll be at full employment actually. We\u2019ll be at full employment the moment before we\u2019re all killed off,\u201d Soares said with some hint of dark humor.<\/p>\n

The expert later lays out his solution to preventing the AI apocalypse: by limiting the \u201cscaling up\u201d of the technology. How AI is currently used, such as trying to find cancer cures, is fine, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut AI trying to mimic and surpass human intelligence is not what we want,\u201d he said. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be shooting for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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