According to The Wall Street Journal, MIT physicist Max Tegmark recently secured over 130,000 signatures for a statement opposing uncontrollable superintelligence, which was presented to Pope Francis at a Vatican conclave in 2024. Signatories included an unlikely coalition from AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton and celebrities Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to far-right strategist Steve Bannon. Tegmark’s organization, the Future of Life Institute, was initially funded in 2014 after a $10 million donation from Elon Musk, following Musk’s famous “summoning the demon” comment, and later received a massive $665 million cryptocurrency endowment from Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin in 2021. The group made global headlines in 2023 with an open letter calling for a six-month pause on advanced AI, signed by 30,000 including Musk and Steve Wozniak. A recent Pew study shows 50% of Americans are now more concerned than excited about AI, up from 37% in 2021. Despite this momentum, key AI safety funders like Open Philanthropy and AI company Anthropic declined to support Tegmark’s latest appeal.
The Unlikely Populist Alliance
Here’s the thing about Tegmark’s campaign: it’s brilliantly, bizarrely populist. He’s not just talking to academics in conference rooms anymore. He’s on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, for crying out loud. And Bannon’s audience, deeply worried about jobs, is listening. That’s a huge shift. The fears about AI have officially jumped the fence from Silicon Valley boardrooms and tech forums to Main Street kitchen tables. When both a MAGA die-hard and a Democratic congressman like Don Beyer are nodding along to the same “slow down” message, you know something’s changed in the political atmosphere. It’s no longer a niche debate. It’s a voter concern. Tegmark’s genius—or maybe his desperation—is tapping into that raw, economic anxiety with stunts like the fake “Replacement AI” billboards in San Francisco. The message is simple and scary: “Hope you’ve got savings.” That gets people’s attention in a way a technical paper about “agentic misalignment” never will.
Cracks in the Safety Community
But this push has revealed a major fissure within the AI safety world itself. And Tegmark says it’s by design. Basically, you’ve got two camps now. One camp, which includes companies like Anthropic and their big philanthropic backers, wants to build superintelligence and try to make it safe along the way. The other camp, where Tegmark plants his flag, says we shouldn’t build something smarter than humans at all unless we can prove it’s safe first. That’s a fundamental philosophical split. It’s not just a disagreement on methods; it’s a disagreement on the core goal. The fact that major funders like Open Philanthropy (now Coefficient Giving) and the leaders at Anthropic didn’t sign his appeal tells you everything. The “AI safety” umbrella is tearing. One side is still in the lab. The other, led by Tegmark, is taking the fight to the streets, the airwaves, and the Vatican.
The Musk Factor and OpenAI’s Subpoena
Now, the Elon Musk connection is fascinating and messy. Musk was an early and huge benefactor, inspired by that 2014 “summoning the demon” moment. But that history came back to bite Tegmark this summer when OpenAI subpoenaed his institute, digging for ties to Musk amid their legal battle. Tegmark denies any current funding or role for Musk, but the subpoena shows how nasty this is getting. It’s not just a debate; it’s a war with legal artillery. Bannon might be right that it’s “going to get nasty.” You’re talking about the defining technology—and source of power—of the century. When a leading research organization gets slapped with legal papers from a leading AI company, the gloves are off. This isn’t academic anymore. It’s corporate, legal, and deeply personal.
So What Now?
So where does this go? Tegmark has succeeded in one crucial mission: destigmatizing the critique of AI development. Nobody paused after his 2023 letter, but it became okay, even mainstream, to say “slow down.” His new, more pointed campaign is trying to convert that concern into a specific political barrier against AGI. But can a coalition of Bannon listeners, worried workers, and concerned celebrities actually stop the trillion-dollar race between tech giants and nation-states? That’s the trillion-dollar question. The financial incentives are astronomical, and the fear of “losing to China” is a powerful accelerant in Washington. Tegmark’s playing a long game, building a broad-based movement for a slowdown. But the engines of development are firing at full thrust. Something’s gotta give.
