--- title: Moving Too Fast on AI Could Be Terrible for Humanity description: When it comes to AI, the winner of a race could be advanced AI itself, argues researcher Katja Grace. canonical: https://time.com/6283609/artificial-intelligence-race-existential-threat/ author: Katja Grace article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-05-31T15:59:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:43:16.278Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Moving Too Fast on AI Could Be Terrible for Humanity og:description: We shouldn’t let people throw the world away in a perverse race to destruction, writes AI researcher Katja Grace og:url: https://time.com/6283609/artificial-intelligence-race-existential-threat/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6cc20e94d036cef1/698a3d70929fad93aabf9df5/artificial-intelligence-arms-race.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: artificial-intelligence-arms-race.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Moving Too Fast on AI Could Be Terrible for Humanity twitter:description: We shouldn’t let people throw the world away in a perverse race to destruction, writes AI researcher Katja Grace twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6cc20e94d036cef1/698a3d70929fad93aabf9df5/artificial-intelligence-arms-race.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # AI Is Not an Arms Race > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Katja Grace](https://time.com/author/katja-grace/) ## Katja Grace May 31, 2023 3:59 PM UTC  Conceptual computer artwork depicting artificial intelligence. Conceptual computer artwork depicting artificial intelligence.Getty Images by [Katja Grace](https://time.com/author/katja-grace/) ## Katja Grace May 31, 2023 3:59 PM UTC The window of what AI _can’t_ do seems to be contracting week by week. Machines can now write elegant prose and [useful code](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq1158), [ace exams](https://openai.com/research/gpt-4), [conjure exquisite art](https://openai.com/product/dall-e-2), and [predict](https://time.com/6201423/deepmind-alphafold-proteins/) how proteins will fold. Experts are [scared](https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/why-neural-net-pioneer-geoffrey-hinton-sounding-alarm-ai). Last summer I [surveyed](https://wiki.aiimpacts.org/doku.php?id=ai%5Ftimelines:predictions%5Fof%5Fhuman-level%5Fai%5Ftimelines:ai%5Ftimeline%5Fsurveys:2022%5Fexpert%5Fsurvey%5Fon%5Fprogress%5Fin%5Fai) more than 550 AI researchers, and nearly half of them thought that, if built, high-level machine intelligence would lead to impacts that had at least a 10% chance of being “extremely bad (e.g. human extinction).” On May 30, hundreds of AI scientists, along with the CEOs of top AI labs like OpenAI, DeepMind and Anthropic, [signed a statement](https://time.com/6283386/ai-risk-openai-deepmind-letter/) [urging caution](https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk) on AI: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” Why think that? The simplest [argument](https://wiki.aiimpacts.org/doku.php?id=arguments%5Ffor%5Fai%5Frisk:is%5Fai%5Fan%5Fexistential%5Fthreat%5Fto%5Fhumanity:start#is%5Fai%5Fan%5Fexistential%5Frisk%5Fto%5Fhumanity) is that progress in AI could lead to the creation of superhumanly-smart artificial “people” with goals that conflict with humanity’s interests—and the ability to pursue them autonomously. Think of a species that is to homo sapiens what homo sapiens is to chimps.  TIME illustration Yet while many fear that AI could mean the end of humanity, some worry that if “we”—usually used to mean researchers in the West, or even researchers in a particular lab or company—don’t sprint forward, someone less responsible will. If a safer lab pauses, our future might be in the hands of a more reckless lab—for example, one in China that doesn’t try to avoid substantial risks. **Read More:** [_Pausing AI Developments Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down_](https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/) This argument analogizes the AI situation to a classic arms race. Let’s say I want to beat you in a war. We both spend money to build more weapons, but without anyone gaining a relative advantage. In the end, we’ve spent a lot of money and gotten nowhere. It might seem crazy, but if one of us doesn’t race, we lose. We’re trapped. But the AI situation is different in crucial ways. Notably, in the classic arms race, a party could always theoretically get ahead and win. But with AI, the winner may be advanced AI itself. This can make rushing the losing move. Other [game-changing factors](https://worldspiritsockpuppet.substack.com/i/91988109/the-arms-race-model-and-its-alternatives) in AI include: how much safety is bought by going slower; how much one party’s safety investments reduce the risk for everyone; whether coming second means a small loss or major disaster; how much the danger rises if additional parties pick up their speed; and how others respond. **Read More:** [_How the World Must Respond to the AI Revolution_](https://time.com/6283716/world-must-respond-to-the-ai-revolution/) The real game is more complex than simple models can suggest. In particular, if individual, uncoordinated incentives lead to the sort of perverse situation described by an “arms race,” the winning move, where possible, is to _leave the game_. And in the real world, we can coordinate our way out of such traps: we can talk to each other; we can make commitments and observe their adherence; we can lobby governments to regulate and make agreements. With AI, the payoffs for a given player can be different from the payoffs for society as a whole. For most of us, it may not matter much if Meta beats Microsoft. But researchers and investors chasing fame and fortune might care much more. Talking about AI as an arms race strengthens the narrative that they need to pursue their interests. The rest of us should be wary of letting them be the ones to decide. **Read More:** [_The ‘Don’t Look Up’ Thinking That Could Doom Us With AI_](https://time.com/6273743/thinking-that-could-doom-us-with-ai/) A better analogy for AI than an arms race might be a crowd standing on thin ice, with abundant riches on the far shore. They could all reach them if they step carefully, but one person thinks: “If I sprint then the ice may break and we’d all fall in, but I bet I can sprint more carefully than Bob, and he might go for it.” On AI, we could be in the _exact opposite_ of a race. The best individual action could be to move slowly and cautiously. And collectively, we shouldn’t let people throw the world away in a perverse race to destruction—especially when routes to coordinating our escape have scarcely been explored. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6283609/artificial-intelligence-race-existential-threat/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6283609/artificial-intelligence-race-existential-threat/"},"headline":"AI Is Not an Arms Race","datePublished":"2023-05-31T15:59:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:43:16.278Z","description":"We shouldn’t let people throw the world away in a perverse race to destruction, writes AI researcher Katja Grace","url":"https://time.com/6283609/artificial-intelligence-race-existential-threat/","keywords":["Technology","Tech","Londontime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6cc20e94d036cef1/698a3d70929fad93aabf9df5/artificial-intelligence-arms-race.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katja Grace","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katja-grace/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6cc20e94d036cef1/698a3d70929fad93aabf9df5/artificial-intelligence-arms-race.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"artificial-intelligence-arms-race.jpg","caption":"Conceptual computer artwork depicting artificial intelligence.","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/technology/","name":"Technology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6283609/artificial-intelligence-race-existential-threat/","name":"AI Is Not an Arms Race"}}]}] ```