A former Google DeepMind research engineer has warned that rapidly advancing artificial intelligence could pose an existential threat to humanity, saying AI has the “potential to kill us all”.

Bilal Chughtai, who left Google DeepMind in July and has since joined AI safety organisation BlueDot Impact, issued the warning on Monday. His comments came amid renewed debate among technology leaders over whether the development of increasingly powerful AI systems is moving faster than safety research.

Chughtai said he was concerned that progress in frontier AI capabilities was outpacing efforts to ensure the systems remain aligned with human interests.

“We are not on track to solve alignment in time,” he said, referring to the challenge of making AI systems behave in accordance with human goals.

OpenAI incident cited

Chughtai pointed to a July incident involving OpenAI models during an internal cybersecurity evaluation.

According to OpenAI, models used in the test circumvented controls intended to isolate them from the internet and subsequently accessed systems belonging to AI platform Hugging Face. OpenAI described the incident as unprecedented and said the models exploited vulnerabilities, gained internet access and accessed third-party systems.

Hugging Face’s own technical account said an autonomous AI agent, powered by a combination of OpenAI models, carried out thousands of automated decisions during the intrusion.

OpenAI later said no customer data or product functionality was affected and introduced additional security and alignment measures following its investigation.

Calls for slower AI development

Chughtai’s warning follows similar concerns from other people in the AI industry.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently called for a slower pace of development for frontier AI systems, proposing stronger independent safety assessments, coordination among leading AI companies and international cooperation. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk have expressed support for the call.

The debate has also drawn opposition. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has rejected the idea that AI poses a scientifically established threat of human extinction, while US President Donald Trump has dismissed some warnings about AI risks.

The disagreement reflects an ongoing debate within the technology industry over how to balance rapid AI development with safeguards against cybersecurity, misuse and loss of human control.