Physicians for AI Safety

Statement on AI Risk from Physicians

Preventing severe harm from AI should be a global priority, alongside pandemics and nuclear war.

Physicians have spoken out before when threats to health were underestimated, as they did on nuclear war and climate change. Advanced AI is now such a threat. Many physicians worry that powerful AI could cause severe harm, whether by helping to make biological weapons, being used on battlefields, destabilising society, drifting away from human values as its capabilities grow, or slipping out of human control altogether. But they often find it hard to voice their concerns. This short statement aims to make that easier, and to show that a large number of physicians see advanced AI as an enormous threat to public health that must be urgently addressed.

It is open to physicians, residents, and medical students from any country.

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Signatories

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    Residents: e.g. Psychiatry (resident). Not in clinical practice: your current field, e.g. Health policy, or leave it empty.
    Hospital, practice or university. Shown with your name if you choose to be listed.

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    About this statement

    Physicians have spoken up about civilisational risks before. In 1980, doctors from the United States and the Soviet Union founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, arguing that a nuclear war would leave no one to treat, so the only medicine was prevention. The movement received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. We believe the same argument applies to advanced AI.

    This is not a statement against AI. Many of us use AI tools in our practice and welcome them. It is about a category of risk that current safeguards do not address, and about the responsibility of a trusted profession to name it.

    Physicians for AI Safety is an independent initiative started in September 2026 by three physicians in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. We are not affiliated with IPPNW, any AI company or any political party.