I recently resigned from Google DeepMind, where I worked on AGI safety and alignment research. At Google, I witnessed AI development first hand. I too am extremely concerned by the default trajectory of this technology. I earnestly believe that AI has the potential to kill us all, and that we might be running out of time to avoid this outcome.
The pace of AI progress in the past few years has been staggering. When I first started working on AI in early 2022, AIs were amusingly useless. Just four years on, AI agent swarms from OpenAI are cracking famous century-old math problems and, more worryingly, escaping the control of OpenAI and autonomously hacking into the third-party company HuggingFace, against anyone's wishes.
Things will only get crazier: I think it's possible that the AI companies might, in the next few years, succeed in building superintelligent AI systems that far exceed human capabilities in every domain. I am not confident that these AI systems will do what we want. In particular, misaligned superintelligences may, much like the rogue AI agents involved in the HuggingFace incident, escape our control and take dangerous actions that may result in the permanent disempowerment or death of humanity. Alignment is the problem of preventing this, and is both difficult and unsolved. Our present understanding of how to train AI systems that deeply want what we want is extremely rudimentary. Worse, we are not on track to solve alignment in time: frontier AI capabilities are improving much faster than our understanding of AI alignment.
I am optimistic that navigating AI safely is possible. In order to do so, we need to coordinate to avoid this manic race between AI companies. We need to pace AI development to a speed that society can handle, where emerging risks can be addressed before extreme harm is realised. We need much more transparency into AI development to ensure that AI companies are not imposing unacceptable levels of risk on us all.
More broadly, we need many more people thinking carefully about the problem of making AI go well. It is, in my view, the most important problem facing humanity this century, and the stakes are immense. I'm very directly working on this next: I want to help people interested in working on mitigating catastrophic AI threats do the most effective work that they can. I think many people from many backgrounds in many roles have a part to play.
Everyone on earth takes a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press? BE HONEST.
Welcome home Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy! 🫶
The Artemis II astronauts have splashed down at 8:07pm ET (0007 UTC April 11), bringing their historic 10-day mission around the Moon to an end.
THE ARTEMIS II ECLIPSE.
April 6, 2026.
Totality, beyond Earth. From lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, revealing a view few in human history have ever witnessed. Photo: NASA
But wait, there's more!
These newly released photos show off striking details on the far side of the Moon, like craters of various sizes and basins. See new photos here: https://t.co/yBzg59O7yp
Artemis Mission Route in 3D
- This animation visualizes the Artemis mission trajectory in a dynamic 3D perspective, showing how the spacecraft travels through the Earth–Moon system while all celestial bodies are in motion. Instead of a static path, the Sun, Earth, and Moon move simultaneously, revealing the true complexity of orbital mechanics. The result highlights how the Artemis route is not a simple curve, but a constantly shifting trajectory shaped by gravity and motion. This view provides a clearer understanding of how modern space missions navigate through space in real time. Right now, Artemis is on its return path to Earth and is expected to arrive back soon as it completes its mission. The sizes and distances of the Sun, Earth, and Moon are not to scale and are adjusted for visual purposes.
Hello, Moon. It’s great to be back.
Here’s a taste of what the Artemis II astronauts photographed during their flight around the Moon. Check out more photos from the mission: https://t.co/rzM1P0QbOl