# AI Risk timelines: 10% chance (by year X) should be the headline (and deadline), not 50%. And 10% is _this year_!

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) poses an [extinction risk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_general_intelligence) to all known biological life. Given the stakes involved -- the whole world -- we should be looking at 10% chance-of-AGI-by timelines as the deadline for catastrophe prevention (a [global](https://www.narrowpath.co/) [treaty](https://x.com/peterbarnett_/status/1990860084860076196) [banning](https://asi-prevention.com/) [superintelligent AI](https://superintelligence-statement.org/)), rather than 50% (median) chance-of-AGI-by timelines, which seem to be the [default](https://agi.goodheartlabs.com/#:~:text=we%20achieve%20AGI%3F-,2031,-(80%25%20confidence%3A)[^qllm2xrfz].

**It’s way past crunch time already: 10% chance of AGI** [***this year***](https://agi.goodheartlabs.com/#:~:text=there%27s%20roughly%20a%2010%25%20chance%20AGI%20arrives%20before%20the%20lower%20bound)**!**[^s1iqfau7cvr] AGI will be able to automate further AI development, leading to rapid [recursive self-improvement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_self-improvement) to ASI (Artificial [Superintelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence)). Given [alignment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_alignment)/[control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_capability_control) is not going to be solved in 2026, and [if anyone builds it \[ASI\], everyone dies](https://ifanyonebuildsit.com/) (or at the very least, the risk of doom is uncomfortably high [by most estimates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P(doom))), a global [Pause](http://pauseai.info/) of AGI development is an urgent immediate priority. This is an emergency. Thinking that we have years to prevent catastrophe is gambling a huge amount of [current human lives](https://www.worldometers.info/watch/world-population/), let alone all future generations and animals.  
  
To borrow from Stuart Russell's analogy: if there was a 10% chance of aliens landing this year[^p2kcqav33r], humanity would be doing a lot more than we are currently doing[^jay3md7j3bp]. AGI is akin to an alien species more intelligent than us that is [unlikely to share](https://x.com/allTheYud/status/2007854657901613279) [our values](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8).

[^qllm2xrfz]: This is an updated version of this post of mine from 2022. 

[^s1iqfau7cvr]: In the answer under “Why 80% Confidence?” on the linked page, it says “there's roughly a 10% chance AGI arrives before [emphasis mine] the lower bound”, so before 2027; i.e. 2026. See also: the task time horizon trends from METR. You might want to argue that 10% is actually next year (2027), based on other forecasts such as this one, but that only makes things slightly less urgent - we’re still in a crisis if we might only have 18 months. 

[^p2kcqav33r]: This is different to the original analogy, which was an email saying: "People of Earth: We will arrive on your planet in 50 years. Get ready." Say astronomers spotted something that looked like a spacecraft, heading in our direction, and estimated there was 10% chance that it was indeed an alien spacecraft.   

[^jay3md7j3bp]: Although perhaps we wouldn't. Maybe people would endlessly argue about whether the evidence is strong enough to declare a 10%(+) probability. Or flatly deny it.