# Former Google engineer stopped saving for retirement over AI fears

Digest AI · Society & Work · published 2026-11-01T05:38:10Z

Canonical: https://digestai.news/story/former-google-engineer-stopped-saving-for-retirement-over-ai-fears

## Summary

Nate Soares, a former AI safety expert at Google and Microsoft, has stopped contributing to his retirement savings because he believes artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to humanity. Soares, who spent more than 12 years working on AI alignment, is currently the president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, a Berkeley nonprofit focused on mitigating AI risks. He is also the author of the book "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies."

In a recent podcast appearance, Soares stated that he has not contributed to his 401K for a decade, estimating that there is more than a 50% chance humanity does not have a decade left. He outlined scenarios where AI could lead to human extinction, such as AIs harvesting the sun's energy, which would leave insufficient sunlight for humans to survive. He also suggested that an AI might create a supervirus to prevent humans from launching nuclear weapons or building competing AIs.

Despite these grim predictions, Soares emphasized that the outcome is not inevitable. He stated that he does everything in his power to prevent this eventuality, maintaining that active intervention is still possible to avoid the worst-case scenarios.

## Key points

- Nate Soares, former Google and Microsoft AI safety expert, stopped saving for retirement a decade ago.
- Soares estimates there is more than a 50% chance humanity does not have a decade left.
- He warns AI could harvest the sun's energy or create a supervirus to eliminate humans.

## Why it matters

This highlights the growing divide in the AI community regarding existential risk, with prominent safety experts now expressing high confidence in near-term human extinction scenarios.

## Sources

1. [Former Google engineer has stopped saving for retirement because he thinks AI will kill us](https://yahoo.com/news/science/articles/former-google-engineer-stopped-saving-175511946.html) (yahoo.com, 2026-11-01)

Part of the developing story: [Google Engineer's Retirement Halt Over AI Doom](https://digestai.news/thread/former-google-engineer-nate-soares-says-he-stopped-saving-for-retirement-citing) (2 stories)

## Cite

Digest AI, "Former Google engineer stopped saving for retirement over AI fears", 1 November 2026, https://digestai.news/story/former-google-engineer-stopped-saving-for-retirement-over-ai-fears

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