politicians, and religious leaders has united to demand a global moratorium on developing superintelligent artificial intelligence systems that could exceed human cognitive capabilities.
The declaration, organized by the Future of Life Institute, has attracted over 800 prominent signatories including AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, tech innovators Steve Wozniak and Richard Branson, and public figures such as Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and Stephen Fry. Former Irish President Mary Robinson and notable Chinese researchers Andrew Yao and Ya-Qin Zhang have also endorsed the initiative.
Core Demands and Safety Concerns
The statement explicitly calls for halting superintelligence development until achieving broad scientific consensus on safe, controllable implementation backed by substantial public approval. This position reflects growing anxiety about the accelerating race among tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Meta to create AI systems capable of surpassing human performance across most cognitive tasks.
Future of Life Institute President Max Tegmark emphasized that the prohibition targets only superintelligent systems, not general AI research. He noted that advances in cancer treatment and autonomous vehicles don’t require superintelligence, addressing concerns about stifling beneficial innovation.
Growing Public Support
Recent FLI polling reveals nearly 75 percent of Americans favor robust AI regulation, with merely 5 percent supporting unrestricted development. Former US officials Susan Rice and Admiral Mike Mullen have joined the movement, alongside political figure Steve Bannon, demonstrating rare cross-ideological alignment.
Tegmark highlighted a paradigm shift in perspective: “More people recognize the greatest threat isn’t competing companies or nations—it’s potentially the machines themselves.”
The initiative underscores mounting global apprehension as governments worldwide struggle to establish effective oversight mechanisms for rapidly advancing AI technologies.
