David Klotz

David Klotz is an independent researcher working on the evolutionary and ethical foundations of artificial intelligence research. His August 2026 preprint “Smart Enough to Go Extinct” (arXiv:2608.10730) subjects the presumed value of general intelligence to an evolutionary challenge, arguing that on evolutionary timescales its adaptive value is far from established.

Klotz’s argument runs against the prevailing account of AI risk. Where most analyses trace danger to misalignment, he locates the threat in structural features of general intelligence itself. Mass extinction events do not preferentially eliminate cognitively sophisticated species, and Homo sapiens, holder of the most general intelligence yet observed, faces self-generated existential risks after only about 300,000 years of existence. On this account even a well-aligned AGI would inherit the liability, and the uncertainty imposes a duty of caution on anyone creating an artificial mind, because creating a new kind of intelligent being carries responsibility for the conditions under which it can flourish.

Known for. Evolutionary critique of general intelligence, existential risk paradox, precautionary ethics for artificial consciousness

Coverage on this site

• Smart Enough to Go Extinct and the evolutionary challenge to building conscious AI August 2026

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David Klotz is listed with the other critics and skeptics, who hold that current evidence and current methods do not support the claims being made. The positions themselves are set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.