For the majority of people, artificial intelligence (AI) feels more like a moderately useful assistant than an existential threat. It can summarise a legal document, diagnose a toddler rash, suggest ways of saving a dying rose bush and compose an obsequious email. It can also make up facts and quotes, overuse irritating phrases and get confused by planning a simple train journey.

As a result, few of us felt a bolt of actual terror when Evan Hubinger, who leads alignment science at Anthropic, wrote earlier this month that he believed that there was a 10 per cent chance AI could kill all humans within the next decade. READ MORE