OpenAI safety researcher Steven Adler announced on Monday he had left OpenAI late last year after four years at the company. In a post shared on X, Adler criticized a race toward AGI that is taking shape between leading AI labs and global superpowers.

"An AGI race is a very risky gamble, with huge downside," he said. "No lab has a solution to AI alignment today. And the faster we race, the less likely that anyone finds one in time." Alignment is the process of keeping AI working toward human goals and values, not against them.

Adler worked as an AI safety lead at OpenAI, leading safety-related research and programs for product launches and speculative long-term AI systems, per his LinkedIn profile. He's also listed as an author on several of OpenAI's blog posts.

In the X post announcing his exit from the company, he called his time at OpenAI "a wild ride with lots of chapters," adding he would "miss many parts of it."

However, he said he was personally "pretty terrified by the pace of AI development."

"When I think about where I'll raise a future family, or how much to save for retirement, I can't help but wonder: Will humanity even make it to that point?" he said.

"Today, it seems like we're stuck in a really bad equilibrium. Even if a lab truly wants to develop AGI responsibly, others can still cut corners to catch up, maybe disastrously. And this pushes all to speed up. I hope labs can be candid about real safety regs needed to stop this," he continued.

Adler's fears have been echoed by some of the world's leading AI researchers.

Stuart Russell, professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Financial Times that the "AGI race is a race towards the edge of a cliff."

"Even the CEOs who are engaging in the race have stated that whoever wins has a significant probability of causing human extinction in the process, because we have no idea how to control systems more intelligent than ourselves," he said.

Adler's and Russell's comments come amid increased attention on a global AI race between the U.S. and China. The news that Chinese company DeepSeek had potentially built an equal or better AI model than leading U.S. labs at a fraction of the cost spooked U.S. investors on Monday and sparked a reaction from leading tech figures, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.