Toby Ord — on the record

Toby Ord is an Oxford philosopher, author of The Precipice and founder of Giving What We Can, who studies existential risk and now researches AI governance, warning that a single misaligned model could compromise every system it helps build.

On the record

2 Jul 2026 · Podcast · 80,000 Hours Podcast
If you imagine producing one AI system, let's call it GPT-7 and then that produces GPT-8, which produces GPT-9 and 10, and so on. If any of those in that line were to be misaligned, and to be able to scheme about what they want to achieve, then they would have an incentive to misalign the systems that they were building.
Senior Researcher, Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative, University of Oxford at the time
Toby Ord on where AGI timelines go wrong →
9 Mar 2026 · Post · tobyord.com
We're in a race against AI timelines. It is just that we don't know if that race is a sprint or a marathon.
Senior Researcher, Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative, University of Oxford at the time
Broad Timelines →
12 Jul 2024 · Post · tobyord.com
Existential risk from AI had finally gone from a speculative academic concern to a major new topic in global governance.
Senior Researcher, Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative, University of Oxford at the time
Four-year update to the book; he judges climate risk down, nuclear up, and pandemics and AI mixed.
The Precipice Revisited →
Mar 2020 · Book · Bloomsbury
With the advent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, gaining the power to destroy ourselves, without the wisdom to ensure we won't. Since then, these dangers have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pandemics and unaligned artificial intelligence.
Senior Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford at the time
The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity →