Connor Leahy
Co-founder of EleutherAI; former CEO of Conjecture; US Director of ControlAI; co-author of 'The Compendium'
ControlAI
Safety researchers
Leahy helped build one of the first open-source GPT clones, then became one of the loudest voices for stopping the race entirely. Through ControlAI he lobbies parliaments for a ban on superintelligence and on AI systems capable of improving themselves.
Declines to give a number
Aggregators list Leahy at '90%+' but no primary source with that exact figure was located on this pass. His own framing: "if you have a system that is smarter than all of humanity that we can't control, humanity is not guaranteed to survive that transition" (ControlAI podcast, May 10, 2025).Source
On timing
"there is no fundamental physical reason why this can't continue until we have systems that are as smart and smarter than humans" (May 2025); has not given a specific date.
SourceWhat they call for
- Ban on superintelligence development
- Prohibit AI systems that can improve other AIs / do AI R&D
- International treaty modelled on nuclear non proliferation
- Pause on AGI development
In their own words
"If you build systems that are more capable than humans at manipulation, business, politics, science and everything else, and we do not control them, then the future belongs to them, not us." (UK AI Safety Summit)
2023-11
ControlAI position: "no one should be building superintelligence"; prohibit precursor systems that can perform AI R&D.
10 May 2025
Signed
- FLI pause letter 2023