Dan Hendrycks
Director of the Center for AI Safety; advisor to xAI and Scale AI; co-author of 'Superintelligence Strategy'
Center for AI Safety (CAIS)
Hendrycks runs the nonprofit that organised the 2023 one-sentence statement comparing AI risk to pandemics and nuclear war, signed by most lab CEOs. He has said his own probability of doom is above 80%, and with Eric Schmidt he proposed treating superintelligence like nuclear weapons—with deterrence between states and strict control of chips.
Their number
80–100%
"As it happens, my p(doom) > 80%, but it has been lower in the past. Two years ago it was ~20%." (X, April 2, 2023)Source
On timing
"Superintelligence—AI vastly better than humans at nearly all cognitive tasks—is now anticipated by AI researchers. Just as nations once developed nuclear strategies to secure their survival, we now need a coherent superintelligence strategy." (Superintelligence Strategy, March 2025)
SourceWhat they call for
- 'Mutual Assured AI Malfunction' (MAIM) deterrence between states
- Nonproliferation: tracking AI chips and blocking rogue actors
- Compute governance
- International agreement on AI red lines
- Safety benchmarks and evaluations
In their own words
Organised the CAIS statement: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war."
30 May 2023
'Superintelligence Strategy' (with Eric Schmidt and Alexandr Wang) proposes MAIM deterrence, chip nonproliferation, and domestic competitiveness.
5 March 2025
"my p(doom) > 80%, but it has been lower in the past. Two years ago it was ~20%."
2 April 2023
Signed
- CAIS extinction statement 2023 (organiser)
- Global Call for AI Red Lines 2025