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A former Google DeepMind researcher has warned that artificial intelligence could pose an existential threat to humanity, adding to a growing chorus of concerns from scientists working on advanced AI systems.
Bilal Chughtai, who worked on artificial general intelligence safety and alignment research at Google DeepMind, said he believed AI could ultimately cause catastrophic harm if its development continues without adequate safeguards.
“I earnestly believe that AI has the potential to kill us all, and that we might be running out of time to avoid this outcome,” Chughtai wrote on X.
Chughtai left Google DeepMind in July 2026 after working as a research engineer and co-authoring research papers on AI safety and alignment.
His warning follows similar comments from researchers at Anthropic, where concerns about the pace of AI development have become increasingly public.
Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon recently said he resigned partly because some people building advanced AI systems genuinely believed the technology could potentially cause human extinction before the end of the decade.
Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger subsequently said he agreed with Coxon’s assessment and estimated that there was a greater than 10 per cent chance that AI could kill all humans within the next decade.
The warnings have intensified a wider debate over whether technology companies should slow the development of increasingly powerful AI systems to give safety research and regulation more time to catch up.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for a slowdown in advanced AI development, while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX AI chief Elon Musk have also engaged in the growing debate over AI safety.
Chughtai said the development of AI could still be managed safely but argued that companies needed to avoid what he described as a “manic race” to build increasingly powerful systems.
He called for AI development to proceed at a pace that allows researchers and governments to identify and address emerging risks before they result in severe harm.
The warnings come as AI companies race to develop systems with greater autonomy, reasoning ability and capacity to interact with digital environments.
The debate is increasingly shifting from whether AI will transform society to how much control humans can retain as the technology becomes more capable.
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