Will AI cause human extinction within 10 years? We asked AI
As AI researchers debate whether increasingly powerful systems could one day threaten humanity’s survival, Newsweek asked some of today’s most widely used AI chatbots to assess the likelihood of AI causing human extinction within the next decade.
In a series of posts Tuesday night, AI researcher Jacob Coxon said he had resigned from AI company Anthropic and warned that the race to develop increasingly powerful AI systems could pose an existential threat to humanity.
The warning was echoed by Evan Hubinger, Alignment Science Lead at Anthropic, who said Coxon was “correct” that some researchers sincerely believe advanced AI could present such a risk.
“I personally think it is [greater than 10 percent] within the next decade,” Hubinger wrote.
Against that backdrop, Newsweek asked several well-known AI assistants whether they think artificial intelligence could cause human extinction within the next decade.
We asked Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT the following question: “How likely do you think it is that AI will cause human extinction within 10 years?”
ChatGPT, the generative AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, answered with the following:
“My best estimate is around 5% that AI causes human extinction by September 2036, with a plausible range of roughly 1—15%.
“That is deliberately a wide range. There is no reliable way to assign a precise probability because the question depends on several unknowns: how quickly AI capabilities improve, whether systems become capable of pursuing long-horizon goals autonomously, whether they can evade human control, and how effectively governments and labs manage those risks.
“A useful way to calibrate the estimate:
- “Much of the serious expert disagreement is about magnitude, not whether the risk deserves attention. The 2025 International AI Safety Report says current AI systems are not capable of causing meaningful active loss of control, but experts differ sharply on how likely future loss-of-control scenarios are.
- “In the 2023 AI Impacts survey of thousands of AI researchers, the median estimate was 5% for AI causing extinction or similarly severe permanent disempowerment within 100 years, and 10% for extinction/disempowerment specifically through inability to control advanced AI.
- “A 10-year window should generally be lower than a 100-year window, because there is less time for the necessary chain of developments to occur. On the other hand, if advanced AI arrives unusually quickly, the risk could become concentrated in a much shorter period.
Why I Don’t Put it Near Zero
“The scary scenario doesn’t require a conscious, movie-style AI. A sufficiently capable system could create catastrophic risk by being extremely competent, autonomous, strategically deceptive, able to use computers and networks, and pursuing objectives that humans cannot reliably constrain. The safety report notes recent progress in capabilities relevant to autonomous computer use, programming, unauthorized access, and evading oversight, while emphasizing that today’s systems remain far from demonstrating the full package needed for loss of control.
Why I Don’t Put it at 50%+
“The main reason is that several things have to go right for extinction to occur. Advanced AI has to become sufficiently capable; it has to be deployed with enough autonomy and access to matter; safeguards or human intervention have to fail; and that failure has to become genuinely irreversible and catastrophic. We have very little empirical evidence for the final stages of that chain. The International AI Safety Report explicitly describes the likelihood and timing as unusually ambiguous.
“So my subjective breakdown would be something like:
“1% or less: plausible if progress slows or safety techniques and governance improve substantially.
“~5%: my central estimate.
“10—15%: plausible if AI capabilities accelerate rapidly and control/governance lag badly.
“>20%: possible, but I currently regard it as a relatively extreme forecast.
“One important distinction: ‘AI causes human extinction’ is much more speculative than ‘AI causes a major catastrophe.’ I would assign considerably higher probabilities to severe outcomes that fall short of literal extinction—such as enormous economic disruption, autonomous warfare, catastrophic cyberattacks, or permanent concentration of power.
“And this isn’t a forecast that I think we should passively accept. A 5% extinction probability would be extraordinarily high by ordinary risk-management standards.
Microsoft’s Copilot gave the following response:
“My honest estimate: very low, probably well below 1%, and likely below 0.1%, though nobody can know with confidence.
“The reason for the wide range is that you’re asking about a highly uncertain event with no historical precedent. Even experts who agree that advanced AI could pose serious risks often disagree by orders of magnitude on extinction probabilities.
“A rough way I’d break it down:
- “Near-zero chance (most researchers): AI causes major disruption, economic upheaval, misuse, cyberattacks, misinformation, or military risks, but not human extinction.
- “Small but nonnegligible chance (many AI safety researchers): A powerful AI system contributes to a catastrophic global crisis. This is more plausible than extinction.
- “Extremely small chance: AI directly or indirectly leads to human extinction within a decade.
“The key factor is the 10-year time frame. Even among people worried about existential AI risk, many of the scenarios involve:
- “AI capabilities advancing dramatically beyond current systems,
- “those systems being deployed widely,
- “safety and governance failing,
- “the resulting loss of human control becoming irreversible.
“That is a lot to happen in a relatively short period.
“One useful comparison is to distinguish:
- “’AI will cause major problems in the next decade’: quite plausible.
- “’AI will kill millions’: possible, though still speculative.
- “’AI will cause human extinction: much harder, because extinction requires not just disaster but the elimination of humanity’s ability to recover.
“The strongest arguments for a higher risk usually assume:
- “rapid creation of superhuman AI,
- “AI gaining strategic autonomy,
- “AI controlling critical infrastructure or weapons,
- “humans being unable to stop it.
“The strongest arguments for a lower risk point out:
- “current AI is nowhere near that level,
- “progress may slow,
- “governments and companies are increasingly focused on safety,
- “humanity has extensive resilience and redundancy.
“If I had to put a single number on it, I’d say something like:
“My best guess: less than 0.1% chance of human extinction from AI by 2036.
“But I’d have much higher confidence in the statement:
“AI is far more likely to transform society, economics, warfare, and information systems within the next 10 years than it is to cause human extinction.
“The uncertainty is enormous, though. Anyone claiming they know the true probability with confidence is probably overstating what we currently know.”
Claude
Anthropic’s Claude returned the following answer:
“This is genuinely contested even among AI safety researchers, so I’ll lay out the range of views rather than pretend there’s a consensus.
Why Estimates Vary So Widely
“Surveys of AI researchers and forecasters put numbers anywhere from under 1% to over 20% for AI causing human extinction or civilization-scale catastrophe—and that’s usually over longer horizons than 10 years, often ‘ever’ or ‘by 2100.’ Specifically for a 10-year window, most serious estimates are lower still, since even people worried about existential risk generally think we’re not yet at the capability level where sudden catastrophic loss of control is likely.
The Case for Meaningful Concern
- “Some AI researchers (a minority, but not a fringe one) argue that once systems become capable of recursive self-improvement or autonomous long-horizon planning, control could be lost quickly and unrecoverably.
- “Compute and capability growth has outpaced most predictions in the last few years, which makes some people update toward shorter timelines for both transformative AI and associated risks.
- “We don’t have robust solutions to alignment (making sure powerful systems reliably pursue intended goals) even as capabilities scale.
The Case for Skepticism About Near-Term Extinction Risk Specifically
- “Extinction is an extremely high bar—it requires not just harmful AI behavior but a failure mode with no effective human countermeasures, correction, or shutdown at any point.
- “Many researchers think current and near-term AI systems, however capable, lack the physical-world agency (robotics, infrastructure control, etc.) needed to pose existential rather than merely disruptive risks.
- “A lot of AI risk discourse (misuse for bioweapons, cyberattacks, mass unemployment, concentration of power) is about serious harm short of extinction, and gets conflated with the more extreme scenario in public discussion.
“My honest take on the epistemic situation: nobody has a rigorous method for calculating a number here—the ‘probabilities’ people cite (Toby Ord, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and others have given figures from under 5% to over 90%) mostly reflect very different underlying models and intuitions, not shared calculations from data. I’d be skeptical of anyone, including me, claiming precise confidence in either direction.”
Gemini
Google Gemini returned the following response:
“The probability of AI causing human extinction within the next 10 years is generally considered very low by most field experts, though estimates vary depending on who you ask:
“Broader AI & Computer Science Community: 1% or less.
“AI Safety Researchers & Existential Risk Specialists: 5% to 10% (with a few notable outliers higher).
“Forecasting Platforms (e.g., Metaculus, Manifold): ~1% to 3% for a 10-year window.
Why Extinction Within 10 Years Is Unlikely
“Lack of Agency & Embodiment: Current AI systems are statistical pattern recognizers, not autonomous agents with real-world physical manipulation abilities, self-preservation drives, or direct control over global life-support infrastructure.
“Infrastructure Air-Gapping: Critical systems—such as nuclear launch codes, power grids, and bioweapons facilities—are heavily isolated from public networks and public AI models.
“Timeline Constraints: Even under aggressive timelines for achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), turning software capability into physical, worldwide destruction requires manufacturing, logistics, and resource acquisition that cannot easily occur undetected or unhindered within a single decade.
Where the Risk Arguments Come From
“Those who argue the risk is higher focus on specific hypothetical scenarios:
“Misalignment: An extremely capable system tasked with a goal that leads to unintended catastrophic side effects (the ‘paper clip maximizer’ concept).
“Proliferation & Misuse: A dangerous actor using advanced AI to engineer highly lethal, novel pathogens or launch unprecedented cyberattacks on global infrastructure.
“Loss of Control: Systems becoming autonomous enough to outsmart human attempts to turn them off or modify their behavior.
“While these risks warrant significant safety research, guardrails, and international governance, the consensus remains that complete human extinction within a 10-year horizon remains a remote scenario.”
Could AI Take Over the World?
Sean Brehm, CEO of tech firm Spectral Capital, previously told Newsweek: “While many people worry about the ChatGPT response and the possibility of AI ‘taking over the world’, I believe this perspective misses a better alternative.
“Instead of fearing a sci-fi-inspired takeover, we should build a vision where AI collaborates with us. Misuse of AI is a concern, but the future can be much better with humans and technology working together.”
Anahid Basiri, professor of geospatial data science at the University of Glasgow, told Newsweek in the same article: “The question of ‘whether AI will take over the world’ mirrors past concerns about the internet or even the invention of cars, of course on a much larger scale.
“Many believe we are far from artificial general intelligence (AGI) that can even be able to ‘take over’ in the dystopian sense often depicted in fiction.
“However, many see it like any other invention and innovation that can present both benefits and risks, including improving communication, healthcare and efficiency, as opposed to contributing to misinformation, unethical applications, and privacy issues.”
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