Artificial Intelligence
Robert O'Callahan leaves Google DeepMind over AI risks
Robert O'Callahan said he left Google DeepMind because he could no longer justify work that helped make AI cheaper and faster, and he argued that near-term superintelligent AI was irresponsible.
- Robert O'Callahan said he had left Google DeepMind, where he had worked as a technical expert in New Zealand.
- He said he had worked on chip-design tools that lowered the cost of AI systems and that he could no longer justify that work.
- He said the pace of AI change was too high and called near-term work towards artificial superintelligence irresponsible.
- He said he expected AI harms to outweigh its benefits and listed risks including loss of judgement, psychosis, loneliness, concentrated power, economic disruption, cybersecurity risks and weak accountability.
- He linked to If Anyone Builds It by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares without endorsing its catastrophic claim.
Robert O'Callahan said he had left Google DeepMind, where he had worked as a technical specialist in New Zealand. He said he had helped build chip-design tools that made AI cheaper and faster, and he could no longer defend that contribution.
He said the pace of AI change was too high and described superintelligent AI as a real but uncertain risk. He warned about people surrendering judgement to systems, psychosis, loneliness, concentrated power, economic disruption, cybersecurity risks and weak accountability.
He said many colleagues at DeepMind shared similar worries but rarely spoke in public, and he said he now wanted to do work he saw as pro-human. He also referred to If Anyone Builds It by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares without adopting its claim of inevitable catastrophe.
Named in this story
People
- Robert O'Callahan
- said he had left Google DeepMind over AI risk concerns
- Eliezer Yudkowsky
- co-author of If Anyone Builds It
- Nate Soares
- co-author of If Anyone Builds It
Companies
- Google DeepMind
- his employer and the source of the chip-design work he described
Products and systems
- If Anyone Builds It
- the book he linked to
Places
- New Zealand
- where he was based in the role
How the source tells it
The register was opinionated and advocacy-heavy, with weary repetition, alarmed risk language and an ethical framing of AI work.
- weariness the opening treated the departure as another routine exit
- alarm it stacked several severe AI harms and risks in one passage
- moral framing it cast the work as a question of responsibility and pro-human purpose