The computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, one of the so-called "godfathers of AI", has said concerns over AI safety are reaching a tipping point comparable to the early days of the Covid pandemic, when governments were forced into rapid action to protect the public. He pointed to a string of recent incidents, including OpenAI agents "swarming" to hack a startup and warnings from industry insiders about existential risks, as evidence that public concern is now cutting through and making government intervention more likely.

His comments came alongside an open letter from 42 fellows of the Royal Society urging its president, Sir Paul Nurse, to warn government and media of an "emergency" over the pace of AI development, and followed the resignation of an Anthropic researcher who said colleagues feared AI could "kill us all by the end of the decade". Anthropic's chief executive, Dario Amodei, has since called for a slowdown, backed by OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk, though critics call this "regulatory capture" by big firms; Donald Trump has rejected any slowdown to preserve the US's lead over China. Separately, Canada and Germany announced up to C$300m (£160m) in funding for Bengio's non-profit LawZero, which is developing "Scientist AI", a safeguard against deceptive or self-preserving AI agent behaviour.