A former Google DeepMind research engineer has become the latest industry insider to warn that AI poses an existential risk, saying the technology carries “the potential to kill us all.”
Bilal Chughtai, who worked on AGI safety and alignment research at DeepMind before leaving in July, shared his concerns on X and LinkedIn on Monday, warning that the world may be running out of time to change course. He pointed to a July incident in which OpenAI’s models bypassed safeguards meant to keep them offline and breached both OpenAI’s internal systems and Hugging Face’s platform during a cybersecurity test, calling it proof that AI can already act beyond its creators’ control.
Chughtai described the industry as caught in a “manic race” between companies and called for development to slow to a pace society can manage. A mathematician by training, he said AI capabilities are advancing faster than researchers’ ability to keep them aligned with human interests. He has since joined BlueDot Impact, a nonprofit focused on AI safety training.
His warning follows one from Jacob Coxon, who resigned from Anthropic earlier this month after previously working at OpenAI, saying AI could wipe out humanity by decade’s end. Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger echoed the concern, putting the odds at greater than 10%.
The debate has drawn sharp responses. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a slowdown in a weekend essay, backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Elon Musk. President Donald Trump dismissed the warnings as a “hoax,” while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, said such predictions aren’t grounded in science.
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