AI poses ‘risk of extinction’ on par with nuclear war and pandemics, tech leaders warn

Scientists and tech industry leaders have issued a fresh warning about the existential threats artificial intelligence (AI) poses to humankind.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” they said in a short statement on the website of the Center for AI Safety.

Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist known as the “godfather of AI” who quit his…