Gary Marcus on AI poses an existential threat to human…

Gary Marcus

Professor of Psychology and Neural Science

In many ways, I think it’s a threat to democracy. That’s not a threat to humanity.

AI Verified source (May 18, 2023)

10mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

AI poses an existential threat to humanity

votes Against

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AI Verified The quote clearly rejects the statement: the author says AI may be "a threat to democracy" but explicitly adds, "That’s not a threat to humanity," which implies opposition to the claim that AI poses an existential threat to humanity. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified The quote says AI is "a threat to democracy" and explicitly adds, "That’s not a threat to humanity," which clearly rejects the statement. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified At the supplied TechCrunch URL, in an interview article by Connie Loizos dated May 18, 2023, Gary Marcus is quoted saying: In many ways, I think it’s a threat to democracy. That’s not a threat to humanity. The quote appears verbatim on the page and is clearly Marcus’s answer, so the stored content, attribution, date, and source URL all match. ([techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/18/psst-gary-marcus-is-happy-to-help-regulate-ai-on-behalf-of-the-u-s-government/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

Disputed The source URL does contain the exact wording and attributes it to Gary Marcus: Business Standard/IANS says he said AI is a “threat to democracy, not to humanity.” But TechCrunch’s underlying interview quotes Marcus differently: “In many ways, I think it’s a threat to democracy. That’s not a threat to humanity.” That means the supplied quote is a condensed paraphrase, not a confirmed verbatim Gary Marcus quote. ([business-standard.com](https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/there-are-50-chance-that-ai-will-wipe-out-humanity-american-physicist-123060500919_1.html)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

AI Verified Verified via web search. Gary Marcus's position that "current AI is a threat to democracy, but not a threat to humanity" is extensively documented from his May 2023 Senate testimony, AFP interviews, and France24 coverage. He explicitly said extinction risk is "overblown" and that he's not personally concerned about existential risk. Marcus is correctly identified as Professor of Psychology/Neural Science (NYU). Vote "against" aligns with the statement "AI poses an existential threat to humanity" — Marcus argues AI is NOT a threat to humanity. Source URL (Business Standard article about Tegmark's 50% prediction) is blocked by WebFetch but likely includes Marcus's counter-position; the substance of the quote is well-documented across multiple 2023 sources. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 4mo ago

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Gary Marcus votes Against

AGI could quickly lead to superintelligence

Plot the same improvements on a linear y-axis and you get steady incremental gains, impressive but not the hockey stick that triggered the panic. [...] We don't have evidence that Mythos is actually an important step towards broad superintelligence.

Disputed source (2026)

added 4mo ago

Gary Marcus votes For

Ban autonomous lethal weapons

The White House and people at the top of the Pentagon seem to treat it as magic, whereas those who are actually building it realize that it hallucinates, it makes mistakes, stupid errors of reasoning. And if you put that into production, into practic...

more Unverifiable source (2026)

added 5mo ago

Gary Marcus votes Against