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Alex Turner
Alignment researcher at Google DeepMind who resigned in June 2026 after Google signed a Pentagon contract with no restrictions against autonomous weapons or mass surveillance, and who puts the chance that AI kills at least a billion people by 2050 at 25 to 30 per cent.
Roles
- Nov 2023 – 9 Jun 2026Research Scientist, scalable alignment team, Google DeepMindResigned on 9 June 2026 after Google signed a Pentagon contract with no restrictions against autonomous weapons or mass surveillance (end date per his Transformer byline, https://www.transformernews.ai/p/i-tried-to-stop-google-deepmind-pentagon-deal-then-quit); now an independent alignment researcher.Source →
On the record
11 Aug 2026 · Post · The Pond (turntrout.com)
If military integration of AI continues as it is, we may give AIs key tools for a takeover.
Co-written with Omar Khursheed.
4 Aug 2026 · Podcast · Doom Debates
So I operationalize P(Doom) as probability that AI kills at least a billion people by 2050. I put that at, I don’t know, 25, 30%. I think maybe 10-ish percent of this is technical alignment, and the rest is misuse.
Interview with Liron Shapira; earlier in the same episode: "I think that AI is being developed too quickly." Transcript also on LessWrong, 5 August 2026.
15 Jul 2026 · Post · The Pond (turntrout.com)
If an AI is not monitored for deception in its chain of thought, it will have an easier time causing catastrophic damage to humanity by scheming, deceiving, and trying to take over.
From the appendix "Does this have any impact on existential risk from AI?", which he answers "Yes.": a classified military deployment will by default have no trained overseers reading the model's chain of thought.
15 Jul 2026 · Post · The Pond (turntrout.com)
Google still signed a deal handing over their AI without restrictions against killer robots or mass AI spying… At that point, I couldn’t stay at Google in good conscience, so I left.
The essay announcing his resignation; the X thread of the same day opens "I resigned from Google DeepMind bc it broke its founding promise by selling AI to the military without restrictions against killer robots or mass spying."