Alex Turner
Independent alignment researcher (left Google DeepMind, 2026) · as of 2026-10-04 · source
Google DeepMind alignment researcher who resigned in June 2026 over Google's Pentagon Gemini deal and testified to the Senate on rogue AI agents.
Role changes
- 2026-06 Resigned from Google DeepMind over the Pentagon Gemini deal (made public July 15, 2026) source
News mentioning Alex Turner (4)
- Senate subcommittee holds first hearing on rogue AI agents; Hawley pushes developer liability after Altman declines to testify ★★★★
On Sept 30, 2026 the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee chaired by Josh Hawley (ranking member Andy Kim) held "Rogue AI: Securing the Homeland Against AI Agent Attacks", with METR's Chris Painter, Apollo Research's Marius Hobbhahn, Georgetown's Paul Ohm, Dragos's Kurt Gaudette and Daniel…
- OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki publishes "An Alien Mind": no lab has solved alignment well enough to keep scaling at maximum speed for much longer ★★★★★
On Sept 6, 2026, three days after the GPT-6 Astra launch, OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki published the essay "An Alien Mind" on openai.com. He writes that internal results give him "a strong expectation" that the current pace of progress could be sustained into recursive self-improvement…
- Google DeepMind alignment researcher Alex Turner goes public with his resignation over the Pentagon Gemini deal ★★★
On July 15, 2026 Alex Turner, a scalable-alignment researcher at Google DeepMind, said publicly that he had resigned in June because Google "broke its founding promise by selling AI to the military without restrictions against killer robots or mass spying". He had organized an internal petition to…
- Google lets the Pentagon use Gemini on classified networks, a day after 600+ employees urged Pichai to refuse ★★★
In late April 2026 Google agreed to let the US Defense Department use Gemini for classified purposes, extending an existing unclassified-use contract. About 600 employees, including senior DeepMind researchers, had written to Sundar Pichai asking him to refuse. Google said AI should not be used…
Posts (4)
- Alex Turner original ↗ Alex Turner @Turn_Trout · x · 2026-09-30
Cited as a source by: 2026-09-30-senate-rogue-ai-hearing - Alex Turner original ↗ Alex Turner @Turn_Trout · x · 2026-09-09
Cited as a source by: 2026-07-15-alex-turner-resigns-google-deepmind - Hugh Langley original ↗ Hugh Langley @HughLangley · x · 2026-07-15
Cited as a source by: 2026-07-15-alex-turner-resigns-google-deepmind - Alex Turner original ↗ Alex Turner @Turn_Trout · x · 2026-07-15
Cited as a source by: 2026-07-15-alex-turner-resigns-google-deepmind
Videos (1)
- I Quit Google's AI Lab. Here's What the Public Should Know Palisade Research · 2026-09-29
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