More than 700 scientists, political figures, and celebrities, including Prince Harry, Richard Branson, and Steve Bannon, have called for an end to the development of artificial intelligence capable of outsmarting humans. This initiative, endorsed by the Vatican’s AI expert Paolo Benanti and celebrities like Prince Harry’s wife Meghan and US singer (link unavailable), aims to prohibit the development of superintelligence until the technology is reliably safe, controllable, and has public buy-in.
The open letter, published by the Future of Life Institute, highlights concerns that the current path of AI development, focused on creating smarter-than-human AI designed to replace people, is not aligned with public desires, scientific safety standards, or religious leaders’ views. Signatories include renowned figures like Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI” and 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics winner, Computer Sciences Professor Stuart Russell, and Yoshua Bengio, the world’s most-cited AI scientist.
This call to action echoes a previous open letter from AI researchers and sector workers during the United Nations General Assembly, which urged governments to reach an international agreement on “red lines for AI” by the end of 2026. The Future of Life Institute’s president, Max Tegmark, emphasizes that companies should not pursue superintelligence without a regulatory framework, while co-founder Anthony Aguirre notes that many people want powerful AI tools for science, medicine, and productivity, but not at the cost of safety and public acceptance.
