The Centre for AI Safety has issued a short statement surrounding the risks of AI – and it’s potential for extinction – which has already been signed by many AI scientists and other notable figures.

Simply reading: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the statement delves right into the potential catastrophic consequences of generative AI.

Signed by Sam Altman and Mira Murati, the CEO and CTO of OpenAI respectively, Lila Ibrahim, COO of Google DeepMind, Kevin Scott, CTO of Microsoft, and several academics and AI scientists, the short statement shows how seriously those at the forefront of the emerging technology are taking its potential risks.

While if the ‘extinction’ level threat is an over-exaggeration remains to be seen, the statement comes just months after an open letter signed by many notable tech figures to put the brakes on the rapidly evolving technology so regulators could catch up.

Governments are still reckoning with how AI will change not just the technology industry, but society as a whole.

Italy banned ChatGPT temporarily as it attempted to regulate how the interface gathered data and if this was in line with European data regulations.

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The Trade Unions Congress (TUC), the UK’s largest trade union, has pressured the UK government to put in more laws to protect workers from AI’s involvement in major company decisions, from the hiring process to layoffs and automation.

Generative AI has also trouble academics as students have turned to large language models for essay writing and homework help – the platforms’ answers are confident, but not always based in fact.

While extinction is on the horizon for thousands of species due to climate change, the threat of AI to human survival seems slightly trivial, when governments, companies, and individuals are still only grappling with the legal risks posed by the emerging tech.