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Two people, side by side

Pick any two of the 43 people on the record and see exactly where they agree and where they part company.

On the left

Ajeya Cotra

Senior Program Officer, Open Philanthropy

Safety researchers

Odds of catastrophe

50–60%

Timeline

Expects transformative AI within decades, possibly sooner; thinks timelines are short enough to matter for career choices.

Asking for

Technical alignment research · Careful scaling policies by labs · Better forecasting of AI progress

Wants a pause

Not on the record

“I think it is more likely than not that advanced AI systems lead to catastrophic outcomes by 2040, conditional on the world still being on something like the current trajectory.”

Full entry

On the right

Andrew Ng

Founder of DeepLearning.AI and Google Brain; former Baidu chief scientist; Stanford adjunct professor, DeepLearning.AI / AI Fund / Stanford

Skeptics

Odds of catastrophe

Not stated

Timeline

"Maybe a year ago, AGI felt 50 years away. Over the past year, perhaps we've made a solid 2% of progress, with another 49 years to go." / "We are still very, very far away." (Fast Company, February 27, 2026)

Asking for

open-source / open-weights models · regulate applications, not models · opposed California SB 1047 · resist what he calls the 'anti-AI coalition' slowing progress

Wants a pause

Not on the record

“No number. "I have to admit, I don't get it. I'm struggling to see how AI could pose any meaningful risk for our extinction." (X, June 5, 2023). Acknowledges risks of "bias, fairness, inaccurate outputs, job displacement, [and] concentration of power."”

Full entry