‘We need more time’: Another researcher quits over AI risks, this time from Google DeepMind

5 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Sep 16, 2026 08:45 AM IST

Despite enjoying his work at DeepMind, Engels said he decided to quit three weeks ago. (Image: Google)

Days after an Anthropic researcher quitting his job snowballed into a global conversation about AI-driven human extinction, another AI scientist from Google DeepMind has announced his resignation over similar concerns.

Josh Engels in a post on X on Sunday, September 13, said that he has left Google’s AGI safety team and warned that increasingly capable AI systems could cause immense harm if safety efforts fail to keep pace. Despite enjoying his work at DeepMind, Engels said he decided to quit three weeks ago because “of how high I think the stakes are right now.” He also revealed that he had turned down offers from Anthropic and OpenAI for the same reasons.

“I now think that there’s a terrifying chance that AI systems cause immense harm in the next five years. I don’t know the exact probability, but I think it’s high enough to make this the most important problem in the world,” Engles wrote. “I think we need more time. That means pacing AI development so that capabilities don’t outrun our ability to align models, and actually knowing how aligned current systems are,” he added.

Engels’ post came a day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed a similar global slowdown of frontier AI development. Amodei also proposed a three-step plan that includes giving independent auditors employee-level access to frontier AI models in the future.

I left Google DeepMind’s AGI safety team three weeks ago to join @METR_Evals. To some of my friends and family this seemed like a strange decision: I enjoyed the work I did at GDM and turned down offers from Anthropic and OpenAI. But I made the decision because of how high I…

— Josh Engels (@JoshAEngels) September 12, 2026

What is recursive self-improvement?

Story continues below this ad

What is METR?

Story continues below this ad