AI poses risk of extinction, tech leaders warn in open letter. Here's why alarm is spreading

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Hundreds of scientists, tech industry execs and public figures — including leaders of Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT — are sounding the alarm about artificial intelligence, writing in a new public statement that fast-evolving AI technology could create as high a risk of killing off humankind as nuclear war and COVID-like pandemics.

"Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war," said the one-sentence statement, which was released by the Center for AI Safety, or CAIS, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization.

CAIS said it released the statement as a way of encouraging AI experts, journalists, policymakers and the public to talk more about urgent risks relating to artificial intelligence.

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