Former DeepMind engineer warns AI apocalypse could become imminent
Ex-Google DeepMind researcher Bilal Chughtai resigned, saying humanity may soon run out of time to prevent a catastrophic AI outcome.
Bilal Chughtai, a former research engineer at Google DeepMind, posted on X that he had resigned after contributing to AGI safety and alignment work, emphasizing that the window to avert an AI-driven catastrophe may be closing. His statement follows recent departures from Anthropic, where Jacob Coxon and Evan Hubinger have warned that AI could kill humanity by the end of the decade, estimating a more than 10% chance of such an outcome.
The wave of high-profile exits has intensified discussion of AI “doomerism,” prompting Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to advocate for slowing advanced AI, a stance echoed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk. In contrast, President Donald Trump dismissed regulatory proposals as a hoax, while Senator Bernie Sanders and conservative podcaster Steve Bannon are set to jointly call for AI restrictions at a Washington event, highlighting a rare bipartisan convergence on the issue.
Bannon criticized tech firms for influencing Trump’s anti-regulation stance and urged Congress to allow states to set their own safeguards. Google declined to comment on the resignation.
Why it matters
The warnings highlight growing concern that unchecked AI development could pose existential risks, prompting political and industry debate.
How this story developed
- Sep 10 OpenAI urges U.S. Congress to adopt mandatory, capability-based AI safety rules
- Sep 10 Anthropic’s new threat-intelligence report reveals that its Claude models were used in real-world attempts to develop biological weapons, prompting the company to block the requests and ban related accounts.
- Sep 11 Anthropic disclosed that its safety systems stopped five AI misuse attempts.
- Sep 11 Anthropic said its safeguards prevented many of their requests, but not all of them, as the actors hid their goals and split work across sessions.
- Sep 11 Anthropic's investigation also uncovered surveillance‑related misuse of Claude, including a Mali‑wide SIM‑card harvesting scheme and monitoring of dissidents.
- Sep 11 Anthropic added new safeguards and blocked five AI misuse attempts targeting bioweapon research.
- Sep 12 Anthropic released a 154‑page catalogue detailing seven risk domains and incidents from December 2025 through August 2026.
- Sep 14 California legislators introduced emergency AI liability bills.
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