Stuart Russell: prohibit superintelligence while control remains unsolved

‘Just as the gorillas have no say over whether they exist … we would have no say over whether we exist’

EXCERPT

RUSSELL: "So we have to prohibit superintelligence because a superintelligent system is something that we have no idea how to control. Um, if we had one, we would have to figure out how do we retain power forever over this thing that's much more powerful than us, and we don't understand how it works. So at least for the time being, we have no choice but to say no. A system that is much more intelligent than human beings would be able to dictate the course of events. Uh, and just as the gorillas have no say over whether they exist because we are much smarter than them, we would have no say over whether we exist because the machines will be much smarter than us. So if you care about whether human beings continue to exist, uh, then you should care about banning superintelligence"

Source: ControlAI · Sep 27, 2026 · 58s clip