Google CEO claims the probability of AI causing existential doom is “pretty high” — but he’s banking on humanity to rally against the imminent catastrophe

Over the past few years, generative AI has taken the tech world by storm, with every major corporation plunging billions into the ever-evolving landscape with the hope of catching up with the likes of OpenAI in the stiff AI race.

However, there are several issues that are seemingly deterring the technology from scaling greater heights, including privacy and security concerns lobbied by critics. Perhaps more concerning, multiple reports suggest that there's a 99.999999% probability that the technology could potentially lead to the end of humanity.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims the highlighted AI threats won't be experienced at the AGI (artificial general intelligence) moment. Instead, he says the coveted benchmark will be achieved and whoosh by within the next 5 years with surprisingly little societal impact.

However, Google CEO Sundar Pichai doesn't seem to share the same sentiments. While speaking to Lex Fridman on a recent podcast episode, the executive indicated (via Axios):

"I'm optimistic on the p(doom) scenarios, but ... the underlying risk is actually pretty high."

But perhaps more interestingly, the executive claims that humanity could rally to prevent the imminent catastrophe from seeing the day of light. However, Sam Altman previously shared that technology will be smart enough to prevent itself from spelling doom on humanity.

This is quite a bold statement, with the world seemingly being split about the development of AI.

Elsewhere, former OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo recently revealed that Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Ilya Sutskever started OpenAI as a "countervailing force" to thwart DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis' plan to become an AGI dictator.

The executive claimed that Hassabis planned to leverage Google's vast resources to get to the AI finish line first, then work backwards correcting for security loopholes and threats.

Interestingly, DeepMind's CEO recently claimed that AGI could be on the horizon, but warned that society might not be ready for all that the coveted benchmark entails. He claimed that the prospects keep him up at night.