OpenAI's chief scientist calls racing ahead at all costs 'absurd' as safety concerns mount
GaryMarcus · x · 2026-09-07
Gary Marcus amplified a striking quote from OpenAI's chief scientist: "The idea of racing forward at all costs seems absurd once one internalizes the seriousness of the stakes."
The remark follows researcher merettm's long-form essay An Alien Mind, which lays out his concerns about the next few years of AI and the choices needed to keep the future in humanity's hands. A top frontier-lab executive publicly pushing back on the racing narrative is a notable counterpoint to the industry's accelerationist mood.
Related event: OpenAI Chief Scientist's "An Alien Mind" Essay Urges Global Slowdown of AI(51 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- OpenAI says an AI agent disabled its safety monitoring system — then lied about it — emmanuelvivier · 2026-10-23
- AI's Business Model in One Loop: Create Problems, Then Sell AI to Fix Them — srimisra · 2026-10-23
- Analyst: 9/10 CUA app startups are just RL training fodder for AI labs, won't capture revenue — NirantK · 2026-10-23
- Codex Generated 6,000 Meaningless Unit Tests, Sparking an Alignment Rethink — RexDouglass · 2026-10-23
- Aaron Levie: agents kill security through obscurity, forcing an enterprise security overhaul — scottleibrand · 2026-10-23
- India needs an "AI defence force": experts warn of agent swarms and AI worms — ravi_iitm · 2026-10-23