The AI extinction warning from former Google DeepMind researcher Bilal Chughtai adds to growing calls for slower, safer development of increasingly powerful systems.
LONDON: An AI extinction warning from former Google DeepMind researcher Bilal Chughtai has intensified debate over the speed at which increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems are being developed, with the safety specialist saying humanity could be running out of time to address potentially catastrophic risks.
Chughtai, who worked as a research engineer on artificial general intelligence safety and alignment at Google DeepMind, left the company in July 2026. In a post on X, he said he believed AI had the potential to “kill us all” and called for greater coordination between technology companies.
Why is the former DeepMind researcher worried?
Chughtai’s concern centres on the possibility that future AI systems could become sufficiently capable that humans struggle to control or reliably align them with human interests.
He argued that safely navigating AI development remains possible, but would require coordination to avoid what he described as a “manic race between AI companies”.
His comments do not mean current AI systems are about to destroy humanity. Instead, the AI extinction warning concerns hypothetical future systems that could become substantially more capable and autonomous than today’s technology.
There is also no scientific consensus establishing that human extinction from AI will occur, or assigning an agreed probability to such an outcome.
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Are other AI researchers raising similar concerns?
Yes. Chughtai’s comments follow warnings from researchers with experience at other leading AI laboratories.
Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon recently said he resigned partly because people developing advanced AI genuinely believe it could become capable of killing humanity by the end of the decade. Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger subsequently said he believed there was a greater than 10% chance of AI causing human extinction within the next decade.
Those estimates represent individual researchers’ assessments rather than established probabilities.
The debate has nevertheless reached senior levels of the technology industry. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for slowing the pace of advanced AI development, while concerns about coordinating development have also received backing from prominent industry leaders.
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Why does the AI race matter?
Companies including Google DeepMind, Anthropic and OpenAI are competing to build increasingly capable models and autonomous AI agents.
Safety researchers worry that commercial and geopolitical competition could encourage developers to move faster than governments and society can adapt.
Chughtai has instead called for AI development to proceed at a pace that gives society enough time to identify emerging dangers and respond before severe harm occurs.
Not everyone accepts the scale of the threat. Some researchers question highly specific extinction estimates, arguing that predictions about future superintelligent systems involve considerable uncertainty.
That disagreement makes the latest AI extinction warning particularly significant: the debate is no longer simply about what AI can do today, but how much risk society should accept while developing systems that may become dramatically more powerful.
Impact to expect
Scrutiny. Growing warnings from researchers who have worked inside major AI laboratories could increase pressure on governments and technology companies to strengthen safety testing, coordination and oversight before more capable systems are released.
