Former DeepMind Engineer Joins Rising AI Safety Warning

Former Google DeepMind research engineer Bilal Chughtai warned on Sept. 14 that artificial intelligence could potentially kill all humans. Chughtai left DeepMind in July after working on AGI safety and alignment research. He said society may be running out of time to prevent a catastrophic outcome.

His warning follows recent resignations and public concerns from researchers at leading AI companies. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon recently left while warning that developers may be racing toward superintelligent AI. Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger separately estimated a greater than 10% chance that AI could kill humanity within the next decade. Meanwhile, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has urged companies to slow advanced AI development.

Chughtai said safe AI development remains possible but requires coordination among companies to reduce competitive pressure. The debate comes as major technology firms continue investing heavily in increasingly capable systems. Google DeepMind itself has published research examining the transition from AGI to artificial superintelligence and expanded its framework for managing severe AI risks.