AI Impacts 2022 expert survey: median 5 percent for an extremely bad outcome such as human extinction, August 2022

The document exists. The ledger fetched it at its publisher and quotes it.

Record ID

ODDS-2026-0020

Kind

Survey

Jurisdiction

Global

Last verified

16 September 2026

Added

16 September 2026

• The survey page: approximately 4,271 researchers who published at NeurIPS or ICML in 2021 were invited; 738 responses were received, some partial, a 17 percent response rate.
• Responses were accepted between 12 June and 3 August 2022.
• The median respondent believes the probability that the long run effect of advanced AI on humanity will be extremely bad, for example human extinction, is 5 percent.
• 48 percent of respondents gave at least a 10 percent chance of an extremely bad outcome.
• On the separate question of human failure to control AI causing extinction, the median answer was 10 percent.

Role at the time, Where it was said, Timeframe named, Stated basis, Later revision. Stated means the document you can open below says it; silent means the ledger read the document and it does not.

Role at the timeStated

Survey of machine learning researchers by AI Impacts, run by Katja Grace and colleaguesAI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, 3 August 2022.

Where it was saidStated

Fielded by email 12 June to 3 August 2022; results published on aiimpacts.orgAI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, 3 August 2022.

Timeframe namedStated

Long run effect, not otherwise boundedAI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, 3 August 2022.

Stated basisStated

Self reported credences from a 17 percent response sample of two conferences' authorsAI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, 3 August 2022.

Later revisionStated

Repeated in October 2023 with 2,778 respondents (ODDS-2026-0021)AI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, 3 August 2022.

1. 5 percent

   Median probability that the long run effect of advanced AI is extremely bad, for example human extinction

   AI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, as of 3 August 2022.

2. 48 percent of respondents

   Share of respondents giving at least a 10 percent chance of an extremely bad outcome

   AI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, as of 3 August 2022.

3. 10 percent

   Median probability that human failure to control AI causes extinction

   AI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, as of 3 August 2022.

4. 738 responses

   Responses received

   AI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI, primary source, as of 3 August 2022.

A survey median tells you the middle answer among the people who chose to reply, in this case 17 percent of those asked, to a question whose wording is published; it does not tell you what the field believes, and a low response rate means the reader should ask who answered. Its strength over any single person's number is that the method can be inspected and repeated, and it was.

1. AI Impacts, 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AIPrimary · 3 August 2022

• VerifiedSurveyODDS-2026-0021

  Grace et al. 2023 survey of 2,778 AI authors: median 5 percent for extremely bad outcomes, October 2023

  Global · verified 16 September 2026

  The paper, Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AI (arXiv 2401.02843), reports 2,778 responses from 18,459 working addresses, a 15 percent response rate, fielded 10 to 24 October 2023.

• Open questionOpen questionODDS-2026-0022

  Open question: are two named people's percentages comparable when neither states a timeframe or a definition of catastrophe?

  Global · verified 16 September 2026

  Grace et al. 2023 report that between 38 and 51 percent of respondents gave at least 10 percent to outcomes as bad as extinction depending on the question asked, a framing effect inside one survey.

• VerifiedReport findingODDS-2026-0003

  International AI Safety Report 2026: likelihood, nature and timing of loss of control unusually ambiguous, February 2026

  Global · verified 16 September 2026

  Page 76 of the report reads that a key challenge for policymakers is preparing for a risk whose likelihood, nature, and timing remains unusually ambiguous; the ledger read the sentence in the PDF at arXiv 2602.21012 and at the report's own site.

• Open questionOpen questionODDS-2026-0023

  Open question: when a frontier lab researcher states a personal probability, what does it tell you about the lab?

  Global · verified 16 September 2026

  Hubinger wrote that he personally thinks the chance is greater than 10 percent within the next decade and that Anthropic does not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence (ODDS-2026-0001).

• VerifiedSigned statementODDS-2026-0018

  Future of Life Institute: pause for at least six months the training of systems more powerful than GPT-4, March 2023

  Global · verified 16 September 2026

  The letter at futureoflife.org, dated 22 March 2023: we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.

• VerifiedSigned statementODDS-2026-0017

  Center for AI Safety Statement on AI Risk: extinction risk a global priority alongside pandemics and nuclear war, May 2023

  Global · verified 16 September 2026

  The statement text at safe.ai: mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.