New Delhi (AFP) – Tech CEOs are engaged in an "arms race" with artificial intelligence that risks wiping out humanity, Stuart Russell, a prominent computer researcher, warned in an interview with AFP on Tuesday, calling on governments to intervene to slow down the pace.
Published on: 02/17/2026 - 3:33 p.m.
Mr. Russell, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, attending the International AI Summit in New Delhi, says executives at the biggest AI companies understand the dangers posed by super-intelligent systems that could one day surpass humans.
According to him, the responsibility for saving the species lies with governments, capable of acting collectively.
“Allowing private entities to play, in essence, Russian roulette with every human being on earth is, in my view, a complete failure of duty,” said Stuart Russell, a leading voice on AI safety.
Countries and companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build energy-intensive data centers to train and operate generative AI tools.
This burgeoning technology promises advances like drug discovery, but could also lead to job losses, facilitate online surveillance and abuse, among other threats. Added to this is the risk that "the AI systems themselves take control and that human civilization is collateral damage in this process", indicated the professor during an interview at the AI Impact Summit.
“Each of the CEOs of the major AI companies, I believe, want to disarm,” but cannot do so “unilaterally” because they would be fired by investors, he said. “Some have said it publicly and others have told me privately,” he added, noting that even Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, has publicly stated that AI could lead to the extinction of humanity.
OpenAI and rival US startup Anthropic have seen public resignations from employees who voiced ethical concerns. Anthropic also warned last week that its latest chatbot models could be tricked into “knowingly supporting — in a limited way — efforts to develop chemical weapons and other heinous crimes.”
Human “imitators”
International meetings, like this week's AI summit, offer an opportunity to regulate the sector, even if its previous three editions only resulted in voluntary agreements from technology companies.
"It's really helpful for each of the governments to understand this issue. That's why I'm here," said Mr. Russell.
India hopes the five-day AI summit, which brings together tech executives and dozens of high-level national delegations, will help it get ahead in this area. Indian Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Tuesday that the country expects more than $200 billion in investments in AI over the next two years, with about $90 billion already committed.
Meanwhile, fears that AI-based help desk tools could cause mass layoffs in India's largest customer service and technical support sectors have sent shares of the country's outsourcing companies plunging in recent days. According to Stuart Russell, these types of back-office jobs in India are ripe to be replaced by AI.
"We're creating human imitators. And so, of course, the natural application for this type of system is to replace humans."
The researcher perceives an effervescence of protest against AI, “particularly among young people”. “They actually resist the dehumanizing aspects of AI,” he said.
"When you take control of all cognitive functions — the ability to answer a question, to make a decision, to make a plan... you reduce someone to less than a human being. Young people don't want that," he says.
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© 2026 AFP
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