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As the Paris global summit on artificial intelligence (AI) kicked off on Thursday, renowned AI researcher Yoshua Bengio issued a stark warning about the rapid and competitive development of the technology by major tech companies. He cautioned that the unchecked race to build increasingly powerful AI systems could have dangerous consequences, urging for stronger oversight to mitigate potential harms.
At Paris’s ENS university, esteemed AI researcher and 2018 Turing Prize winner Yoshua Bengio introduced the first-ever International AI Safety Report, a comprehensive study compiled under his leadership. The report sheds light on the risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems and advocates for global policies to ensure ethical and secure innovation.
Bengio underscored the now-familiar risks associated with AI, such as its ability to generate deceptive online content. But he warned that new, more severe dangers are becoming increasingly evident. The University of Montreal professor cited mounting proof that AI could be exploited to orchestrate biological attacks or cyber warfare, amplifying the urgency for global safeguards.
Looking ahead, Bengio expressed deep concerns over the potential for humans to lose control of AI systems, warning that these technologies could eventually act with a self-preserving instinct. He also pointed to the recent debut of DeepSeek, a powerful yet low-cost Chinese AI model, which he said has intensified the global AI race—an acceleration that, in his view, poses significant safety risks.
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Bengio called for comprehensive international regulations and a more substantial commitment to AI safety research, lamenting that only a tiny fraction of the sector’s enormous financial backing is allocated to risk mitigation. He cautioned that, without a shift in priorities, advancements in AI could quickly outpace efforts to keep the technology secure.
“Without government intervention, I don’t know how we’re going to get through this,” Bengio said.
Still the world’s leading AI nation for now, the United States has dropped former president Joe Biden’s attempt to impose some rules on development since the inauguration of Donald Trump.
When OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the public scene two years ago, “I felt the urgency of thinking about this question of safety,” Bengio said as he presented the report — designed to match now-familiar documents from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“What scares me the most is the possibility that humanity could disappear within 10 years. It’s terrifying. I don’t know why more people don’t realise it,” he said.
Around 100 experts from 30 countries, the United Nations, the European Union and the OECD contributed to the Bengio-led report, published at the end of January. Work was kicked off at a previous summit on AI safety in Britain in November 2023.
