Google DeepMind researcher quits, says AI may cause ‘immense harm’ in 5 yrs

A researcher at Google DeepMind, who was part of its AGI safety team, has quit the firm, claiming there is a “terrifying chance” AI systems could cause immense harm within the next five years.

“The AI companies are all trying to build superintelligence: systems vastly better than humans at everything,” Engels said in a post on X on September 13.

“They plan to get there through recursive self-improvement, a process where AIs build even smarter AIs in a feedback loop. If this goes well, the resulting systems could be amazing at solving countless problems for humanity. But we don’t currently know how to make sure AIs are safe enough for RSI, and a misaligned RSI loop could be catastrophic,” he said. “Unfortunately, current AIs seem to be getting less aligned over time, not more.”