Max Tegmark

MIT physicist who co-founded and leads the Future of Life Institute, organiser of the 2023 pause letter and the 2025 call to prohibit superintelligence, warning that AI is growing faster than the means to control it.

Roles

Sept 2004 – presentProfessor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyResearch now centred on the physics of intelligence; affiliated with IAIFI and the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines.Source →
Mar 2014 – presentCo-founder and President, Future of Life InstituteFLI's own site now styles him Founder and Chair; Anthony Aguirre is CEO.Source →

On the record

27 Aug 2026 · Interview · TIME
There's this massive opposition to building AI that we don't know how to control, that's romancing our kids, that's teaching terrorists to make bioweapons.
Co-founder and President, Future of Life Institute at the time
Max Tegmark: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2026 →
27 Feb 2026 · Statement · Future of Life Institute
All AI systems should be under meaningful human control. This is especially true for those that could be used in the taking of human lives.
Co-founder and President, Future of Life Institute at the time
Issued as Founder and Chair of FLI, backing AI companies that refused to permit fully autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance.
Statement from Max Tegmark on the Department of War's ultimatum →
22 Oct 2025 · Statement · Future of Life Institute
95% of Americans don't want a race to superintelligence, and experts want to ban it
Co-founder and President, Future of Life Institute at the time
Said at the launch of FLI's "Statement on Superintelligence", which calls for a prohibition on developing superintelligence until there is scientific consensus it can be done safely; Hinton, Bengio and Russell signed.
Prince Harry, Richard Branson, Steve Bannon, and ‘AI godfathers’ call on AI labs to halt their pursuit of ‘superintelligence’ →
25 Apr 2023 · Op-ed · TIME
If superintelligence drives humanity extinct, it probably won't be because it turned evil or conscious, but because it turned competent.
Co-founder and President, Future of Life Institute at the time
The 'Don't Look Up' Thinking That Could Doom Us With AI →
22 Mar 2023 · Open letter · Future of Life Institute
We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.
Co-founder and President, Future of Life Institute at the time
Published by the institute he co-founded and leads; he is a signatory alongside Bengio and Russell.
Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter →