AI Warning | 'Immense Harm In 5 Years': Google's AI Researcher Quits With Stark Warning

The alarm over the risks of artificial intelligence is getting louder. Days after former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that AI could potentially kill all humans by the end of the decade, another AI safety researcher has walked away from a major AI lab with a stark warning of his own. Josh Engels, who worked on Google DeepMind's AGI safety team, has left the company and joined AI evaluation organisation METR. He said he made the move because he believes the stakes surrounding advanced AI have become too high. In a post on X, Engels said he left DeepMind three weeks ago. He said he enjoyed his work at the company and had even turned down offers from Anthropic and OpenAI. Yet he still decided to leave. "I now think that there's a terrifying chance that AI systems cause immense harm in the next five years," Engels wrote. He added that he did not know the exact probability. But, in his view, the risk was high enough to make AI safety "the most important problem in the world." Shubh Bhardwaj brings you the details.