OpenAI board member Paul Cristiano: AI accidents are the most likely cause of your death
Ars Technica AI · rss · 2026-11-14
Paul Cristiano, OpenAI Foundation board member and executive director of the Alignment Research Center, told a Toronto lecture audience: "I think for most people in this room, the most likely reason they will die is because of an AI accident."
In the opening lecture of a three-part series, Cristiano outlined his concerns about an impending "AI takeover"—a situation where goal-pursuing AI systems "call the shots in the same sense that humans today call the shots," and where anyone trying to stop them "would be as ineffective as if you or me was trying to stop the US military." He warned such a scenario could lead to mass death and potentially uninhabitable environments.
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