Roman Yampolskiy
Roman V. Yampolskiy is a computer scientist at the University of Louisville, mostly known for his work on AI safety and cybersecurity. He is the founder and director of Cyber Security Lab, in the department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the Speed School of Engineering of the University of Louisville.
Early life and education
Yampolskiy was born in Riga, Latvia. He received a PhD from the University at Buffalo in 2008.Career
Yampolskiy is the founder and director of Cyber Security Lab, in the department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the Speed School of Engineering of the University of Louisville.AI safety
Yampolskiy is considered to have coined the term "AI safety" in a 2011 publication, and is an early researcher in the field.Yampolskiy has warned of the possibility of existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence, and has advocated research into "boxing" artificial intelligence. More broadly, Yampolskiy and his collaborator, Michaël Trazzi, have proposed in 2018 to introduce "Achilles' heels" into potentially dangerous AI, for example by barring an AI from accessing and modifying its own source code. Another proposal is to apply a "security mindset" to AI safety, itemizing potential outcomes in order to better evaluate proposed safety mechanisms.
He has suggested that there is no evidence of a solution to the AI control problem and has proposed pausing AI development, arguing that "Imagining humans can control superintelligent AI is a little like imagining that an ant can control the outcome of an NFL football game being played around it". He joined AI researchers such as Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell in signing "Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter".
In an appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast in 2024, Yampolskiy predicted the chance that AI could lead to human extinction at "99.9% within the next hundred years".
In 2025, he warned that AI could leave 99% of workers unemployed by 2030.
Yampolskiy has been a research advisor of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and an AI safety fellow of the Foresight Institute.