AI could kill us all by end of decade, admits US tech boss after Brit researcher blasted firms ‘gambling with our lives’

ARTIFICIAL Intelligence could kill all humans within the next decade, a technology firm’s safety chief has said. US giant Anthropic’s Evan Hubinger put the level of risk at ten per cent. AI could kill all humans within the next decade, a tech firm’s safety chief has warned (stock image of Terminator) Credit: Kobal Collection – Rex Features Anthropic’s Evan Hubinger put the level of risk at ten per cent Credit: linkedin/ehubinger He said the danger from current models was low but admitted he was worried the technology will improve itself to the point where it poses a global threat. Hubinger spoke out after one of the firm’s researchers, Brit Jacob Coxon, quit, claiming tech firms were “gambling with our lives”. Sign up for the Tech newsletter Thank you! Coxon left Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, after three years training models for rival OpenAI, which runs ChatGPT. He accused both of acting irresponsibly by allowing models to upgrade their own intelligence without human input, so-called “self-improving AI”. Coxon wrote: “They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. “These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionise any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. “The people building AI earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade. “This is not a marketing stunt.” Most read in Tech Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta have all disclosed breaches by their AI tools as the race to build the most powerful goes on. The Cabinet Office said the UK’s AI Security Institute was collaborating with the major AI firms “to make models safer”. Comment now