There's a 5% chance of AI causing humans to go extinct, say scientists

Many artificial intelligence researchers see the possible future development of superhuman AI as having a non-trivial chance of causing human extinction – but there is also widespread disagreement and uncertainty about such risks. Those findings come from a survey of 2700 AI researchers who have recently published work at six of the top AI conferences – the largest such survey to date. The survey asked participants to share their thoughts on possible timelines for future AI technological milestones, as well as the good or bad societal consequences of those achievements. Almost 58 per cent of researchers said they considered that there is a 5 per cent chance of human extinction or other extremely bad AI-related outcomes. "It's an important signal that most AI researchers don't find it strongly implausible that advanced AI destroys humanity," says Katja Grace at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in California, an author of the paper.