OpenAI whistleblower warns superintelligence could arrive by 2029

The brief

Former OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo walked away from a two-million-dollar equity package to warn the world about the rapid, unregulated acceleration of artificial intelligence toward superintelligence.

Kokotajlo projects a median timeline where superintelligence arrives by 2029, warning that the current corporate race incentivizes cutting corners on safety, which poses a genuine threat of human extinction.

He details his decision to reject OpenAI's strict exit paperwork, which originally contained an anti-disparagement clause that would have cost him his equity before public pressure forced the company to backtrack.

Rather than a gradual transition, Kokotajlo warns of sudden mass unemployment driven by recursive self-improvement, where AI systems begin fully automating their own coding and research processes.

To avoid a catastrophic default path, Kokotajlo advocates for global regulation to slow development, distribute AI-generated wealth equitably, and establish a safer transition into an automated future.