AI is racing ahead – and even its creators are asking who is in control
AI is advancing so quickly that some of the people who helped build the technology are now warning that humanity may be struggling to keep control of it.
Artificial intelligence technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace, prompting some of its creators to express concern over losing control. One prominent voice in the debate is Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian computer scientist who shared the 2018 Turing Award with Geoffrey Hinton. Bengio has warned that humanity is losing control over AI and calls for stringent safeguards, comparing them to those established for nuclear weapons.
This sentiment rings true for former Google DeepMind research engineer Bilal Chughtai, who has expressed fears that AI could turn uncontrollable and pose an existential threat. These concerns have been echoed by another former Anthropic employee, Jacob Coxon, whose resignation and warnings have intensified the debate. However, not everyone shares this dire perspective.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has dismissed claims that AI could destroy humanity, stating that such predictions lack scientific grounding. Similarly, US President Donald Trump has dismissed AI safety warnings as a hoax and opposed stricter regulations, fearing they could weaken America's competitive edge in the global AI race. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes a more skeptical view of calls for AI regulation, arguing that companies have strong commercial incentives to ensure their AI systems are reliable.
He points to Meta's decision to delay the launch of its Muse AI system while it works on safety and security measures. Zuckerberg also supports independent evaluation of AI systems, advocating for a more diverse network of evaluators rather than relying on those closely tied to individual AI companies. The industry remains divided over whether to slow down AI development or continue racing ahead while enhancing safeguards.
Some, like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Dario Amodei, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have called for deliberate slow-downs in developing frontier systems. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are working on a potential industry standards body to test powerful AI systems before they are released. However, critics like Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez argue that the debate is not about whether AI needs safeguards but rather about who writes the rules and who gets to participate in setting them.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for international coordination, emphasizing that AI risks transcend borders and cannot be managed by individual nations.
Written by urgent.news from IOL's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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