An Anthropic researcher said last week he was resigning from the company over concerns that neither the company nor its competitors were acting responsibly in developing the technology. In social media posts, Jacob Coxon estimated a 10% chance of AI causing human extinction within the next decade and said both Anthropic and OpenAI “are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”
Researchers have called for a slowdown of AI development and warned for years that the technology could pose existential risks to humanity.
Following the recent incidents, experts called for improved testing by AI companies and more dialogue between the U.S. and China to come up with shared solutions.
But AI is growing so fast that government and evaluation systems are struggling to keep pace with the technology. Countries are cobbling together their own laws, some conflicting.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned at a conference in July of the need to keep AI from evading human control. The Trump administration initially demonstrated reluctance to regulate AI but has become more keen to reduce cybersecurity risks.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump downplayed the necessity for his administration to check AI development, but acknowledged the need for some regulation.
Experts across computer science, philosophy and other fields have envisioned numerous routes by which a future AI system might cause a global catastrophe, either by escaping human control or in the hands of an unscrupulous people. They range from deploying weapons and identifying a lethal pathogen to manipulating governments into conflict or disrupting the food, energy and communications networks societies rely on to function.
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