The notion that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity is a “bad idea” being promulgated by big tech in the hope of triggering heavy regulation that would shut down competition in the AI market, one of the world’s top AI experts warned.

Andrew Ng, a professor at Stanford University who taught machine learning to the likes of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, and who himself co-founded Google Brain and was chief scientist at Baidu’s Artificial Intelligence Group, said that the “bad idea that AI could make us go extinct” was merging with the “bad idea that a good way to make AI safer is to impose burdensome licensing requirements” on the AI industry.