A stark and urgent warning on the unprecedented risks that a wave of fast-developing technologies poses to global order, and how we might contain them while we have the chance-from a cofounder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind

We are about to cross a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change.

Soon we will live surrounded by AIs. They will carry out complex tasks-operating businesses, producing unlimited digital content, running core government services and maintaining infrastructure. This will be a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. It represents nothing less than a step change in human capability.