For years, people have warned that artificial intelligence might be humanity’s undoing. But when Google, a company that’s poured billions into AI, starts waving red flags — that’s when the world really needs to sit up and pay attention.
That’s exactly what happened.
In a bold move, Google DeepMind has published a research paper admitting that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — the holy grail of AI — could cause serious harm if left unchecked.
Yes, AGI could be that dangerous
The paper, titled "An Approach to Technical AGI Safety and Security," doesn’t sugarcoat anything. While it acknowledges AGI’s incredible potential to revolutionise science, medicine, and productivity, it also warns of “substantial harm” if things go wrong.
The team breaks down the risks into four buckets: misuse, misalignment, mistakes, and structural risks. In plain speak? AGI could be exploited by bad actors, behave unpredictably, or even operate beyond our control — not exactly comforting.
How Google plans to handle it
To tackle the “misuse” risk, Google says it’ll focus on restricting access, monitoring use, and hardening security around dangerous capabilities. For the misalignment problem — when AI’s goals don’t match human intentions — Google proposes a combo of model-level checks and system-wide safeguards.
In theory, it’s all part of a larger plan to build safety cases — structured, provable ways of ensuring AGI systems don’t spin out of control.
DeepMind's CEO has been saying it all along
This isn’t DeepMind’s first “AI caution tape” moment. In an earlier interview with Axios, CEO Demis Hassabis said AGI systems are inevitable because they’re “economically and scientifically useful” — but also dangerously powerful in the wrong hands.
He argued that society needs to spend more time thinking about life after AGI, warning that we’re moving too fast with too little public debate about what kind of future we’re racing toward.
So yes, Google’s still all-in on AI. But even they admit that if AGI goes sideways, the fallout could be massive. The takeaway? If the people building the tech are this nervous — maybe we all should be.
