Geoffrey Irving on Slow down AI development

Geoffrey Irving

AI safety researcher; former safety researcher at OpenAI and Google DeepMind, former chief scientist at the UK AI Security Institute, and cofounder and chief scientist of Resolution.

If you’re doing a very dangerous thing, you should just slow down. The AI companies are overplaying the extent to which this is a pure coordination problem. They could just stop unilaterally.

AI Verified (Oct 2, 2026)

Source:

Watchmen Daily Journal, “AI researchers warn companies rushing self-improving systems,” October 2, 2026. The article attributes to Geoffrey Irving, co-founder and chief scientist at AI nonprofit Resolution: “If you’re doing a very dangerous thing, you should just slow down. The AI companies are overplaying the extent to which this is a pure coordination problem. They could just stop unilaterally.”

1mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

Slow down AI development

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AI Verified Irving expressly says AI companies should slow down and can stop unilaterally; the full statement is covered. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 1mo ago

Vote inference verification history AI Verified Report this

AI Verified The quoted author is Geoffrey Irving and explicitly supports slowing AI development; recorded answer for is correct. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 1mo ago

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AI Verified The October 2 Watchmen Daily Journal source passage reproduces this exact quotation and attributes it to Geoffrey Irving. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 1mo ago

replying to Geoffrey Irving

Other opinions from Geoffrey Irving

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Geoffrey Irving votes For

AI poses an existential threat to humanity

I believe there’s about a 50% chance we all die because of the development of smarter-than-human AI systems, and that our actions over the next two to 10 years will determine the outcome.

AI Verified source (Oct 3, 2026)

added 20d ago

Geoffrey Irving abstains

AI alignment is solvable

I think that could work. I don’t think we have a strong argument that the pragmatic mixture of approaches will get all the way there, but it just seems very dicey, and our understanding of the dynamics involved is very weak.

AI Verified source (Aug 11, 2026)

added 2mo ago

Geoffrey Irving votes Against

Pausing AI at human-genius level to solve alignment is safer than either racing to superintelligence or halting entirely

Now. My take is that if we were to carefully analyse this question of exactly when we should slow down, it would be a while ago in the past, because we’re just too close to this crazy future. Trying to be super precise about exactly when in the futur...

more AI Verified source (Aug 11, 2026)

added 2mo ago