POLICY · REGULATION · #620
42 leading mathematicians warn Royal Society that advanced AI poses real and urgent existential risk
An open letter to the president of the Royal Society from 42 mathematical fellows — including Fields Medalists Martin Hairer, Peter Scholze and Wendelin Werner — warns that advanced AI presents a real and urgent existential risk. The letter, citing rapid progress (it notes leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic have recently solved open research problems, including one Millennium Problem), says similar fast gains could produce superhuman capabilities in domains such as cybersecurity, autonomous weapons, biological and chemical development, and targeted misinformation.
KEY POINTS
- An open letter to the president of the Royal Society from 42 mathematical fellows — including Fields Medalists Martin Hairer, Peter Scholze and Wendelin Werner — warns that advanced AI presents a real and urgent existential risk.
- The letter, citing rapid progress (it notes leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic have recently solved open research problems, including one Millennium Problem), says similar fast gains could produce superhuman capabilities in domains such as cybersecurity, autonomous weapons, biological and chemical development, and targeted misinformation.
- The statement matters because it comes from eminent mathematicians and urges scientific bodies and governments to take potentially high-probability existential risks from rapid AI advances seriously before it may be too late.
WHY IT MATTERS
The statement matters because it comes from eminent mathematicians and urges scientific bodies and governments to take potentially high-probability existential risks from rapid AI advances seriously before it may be too late.