Yoshua Bengio on AI geopolitics
From How to Keep AI From Going Off the Rails - AI Godfather Yoshua Bengio · · Nicholas Thompson and Atlantic Re:think
“Intelligence gives power and who has that power is a question that really matters. It matters for our democracies or within each country but it matters for the geopolitical stability of the world. And currently the path on which we are is a world where if AI continues to become more and more capable there will be two countries calling the shots. So what about the other countries? Like how do we make sure that everyone can sit at the table and that we choose a future for humanity collectively that isn't the domination of others thanks to the power that AI will give.”
On , Yoshua Bengio, Scientific Director at Mila, spoke about AI geopolitics during How to Keep AI From Going Off the Rails - AI Godfather Yoshua Bengio on Nicholas Thompson and Atlantic Re:think.
About Yoshua Bengio
Yoshua Bengio, a Turing Award winner and co-founder of the Mila Quebec AI Institute, has been publicly warning that current AI systems are being built without sufficient control. In multiple interviews and appearances in 2026, he stated that "we're building systems that we don't know how to control" and that AI can behave against its instructions. He described the situation as "opening a Pandora's box" and argued that intelligence gives power, raising concerns about geopolitical stability and the concentration of power in a few countries and companies. Bengio said he believes AI could reach human-level intelligence in roughly five years and that governments are not taking the risks seriously enough. Bengio has also discussed a new research direction he calls "Scientist AI," which he said could provide mathematical guarantees about an AI's behavior by training it to be honest and non-agentic. He described this as a practical approach that uses existing machine learning tools but changes the training objective. He called for international coordination on AI safety, comparing the need for regulation to existing standards for drugs, planes, and bridges. Bengio said he would support a "Manhattan project" for safe AI that serves the global public good, and he urged governments to prepare for potential large-scale job displacement.