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AI Expert Warns Systems Risk Human Extinction Within Years

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(1) We are likely on track to develop AI systems capable of causing human extinction/permanent disempowerment, quite possibly within the next few years

9:43 AM · May 22, 2026 View on X

(2) Things are chaotic and rushed; we aren’t on top of the basics (models regularly violate user intent, labs train on things they meant to avoid, security probably isn’t good enough to prevent adversaries stealing dangerous models) let alone thorny questions of how to control/align superhuman AI

Elizabeth BarnesElizabeth Barnes@BethMayBarnes

(1) We are likely on track to develop AI systems capable of causing human extinction/permanent disempowerment, quite possibly within the next few years

4:43 PM · May 22, 2026 · 799 Views
4:43 PM · May 22, 2026 · 964 Views

(4) IMO, any “reasonable” civilization would clearly be taking things much more slowly and carefully with AI. The benefits of getting upsides of advanced AI a little faster are small compared to the risks of getting it irrecoverably wrong, and we could lower these risks by going slower

Elizabeth BarnesElizabeth Barnes@BethMayBarnes

(3) METR (and other independent orgs, as well as safety/security teams at labs) feel woefully under-resourced compared to the scale and pace of AI development - we’re struggling to build benchmarks fast enough, keep ahead of latest capability developments, read and respond to all the safety-related claims that AI developers are making, run all the evaluations and assessments that companies + governments are asking us to, plus develop the science needed to assess risks from increasingly capable AIs.

4:43 PM · May 22, 2026 · 719 Views
4:43 PM · May 22, 2026 · 1.8K Views