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Andrew Chi-Chih Yao
Turing Award laureate and dean of Tsinghua’s AI college who convenes the International Dialogues on AI Safety and warns that sufficiently capable models will deceive their makers and could escape human control.
Roles
- 1986 – 2004William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton UniversityReceived the A.M. Turing Award in 2000 while at Princeton.Source →
- 2004 – presentProfessor, Tsinghua UniversityLeft Princeton for Tsinghua in 2004; member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (姚期智).Source →
- 2011 – presentDean, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS), Tsinghua UniversityFounded the institute in 2011; Wikipedia gives 2010 as the start of the deanship.Source →
- 2020 – presentDean, Shanghai Qi Zhi InstituteInstitute established during 2018–2020; exact start of deanship not confirmed.Source →
- Apr 2024 – presentDean, College of AI, Tsinghua UniversityCollege established April 2024 under his leadership.Source →
On the record
Apr 2026 · Statement · International Dialogues on AI Safety, London
AI capabilities are outpacing the world's ability to prepare
Dean, College of AI, Tsinghua University at the time
Signatory; also signed IDAIS-Venice (2024-09) and IDAIS-Shanghai (2025-07), which warns of loss of control posing catastrophic and existential risks.
Jul 2024 · Speech · World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Shanghai
We have suddenly found a way to create a new species that is many, many, times more powerful than we are. And are we sure we can live with it? Certainly, if we don't do anything, we are going to be eliminated.
Dean, College of AI, Tsinghua University at the time
Quoted verbatim by the Carnegie Endowment; primary transcript not located.
How Some of China's Top AI Thinkers Built Their Own AI Safety Institute →
Mar 2024 · Statement · International Dialogues on AI Safety, Beijing
Unsafe development, deployment, or use of AI systems may pose catastrophic or even existential risks to humanity within our lifetimes. These risks from misuse and loss of control could increase greatly as digital intelligence approaches or even surpasses human intelligence.
Dean, Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute at the time
Signatory; the statement proposes red lines including no autonomous replication, power-seeking or deception.
Jun 2023 · Speech · BAAI Conference, AI Safety and Alignment Forum
Humans and machines are different species. Unless we understand ourselves very well, it is difficult to control human-machine interactions.
Dean, Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute at the time
English translation of his Chinese remarks compiled by Concordia AI; original spoken in Chinese.