Letter to Elected Officials On Danger of AI
Dear [elected official]:
I gave my first talk on AI and the impact on our lives including jobs at Yale University in 2013. I have continued to speak on it ever since. At that time AI experts thought we would get to artificial general intelligence (AGI) if at all by 2050. Now, in 2026, 13 years later, Silicon Valley AI experts believe AGI may be achieved between 2027 and 2030. And that by 2030 we will have astounding developments in robotics to accompany AGI.
I write to warn you of the dangers this race to AGI presents without prompt federal (and in the absence of federal state) regulation to:
• require the companies pursuing it to demonstrate they have adequate safeguards in place to prevent some catastrophic development, for example, evil perpetrators using it to create chemical, biologic, radiologic or nuclear events; and
• require the companies pursuing it to demonstrate realistic plans for dealing with the significant disruption to jobs including all knowledge work and with the advent of increasingly efficient and competent robots physical work.
Please take prompt action to regulate AI while we humans still have the ability to make sure we have control over the AI's that are created.
I also write at the suggestion of two of the “godfathers” of AI – Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton – who are now speaking as broadly as they can to educate the public about these dangers. Their warnings have been followed by a decline in transparency by the leading AI companies. See a December 9, 2025 article by Wharton, "Transparency in AI is on the Decline" https://hai.stanford.edu/news/transparency-in-ai-is-on-the-decline?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Transparency%20in%20AI%20Is%20on%20the%20Decline&utm_campaign=Research%2C%20News%2C%20and%20Events%20Newsletter
If you have any doubt about these dangers listen/watch these two conversations with Bengio and Hinton on YouTube:
Yoshua Bengio one of three “godfathers of AI” and most cited living scientist in the world including on AI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ1POHiR8m8
Geoffrey Hinton, nobel prize winner and one of three “godfathers of AI”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giT0ytynSqg&t=40s
William R. "Sam" Sneed, III
