AI Safety researcher expresses growing pessimism about preventing AI doom in 2026, citing failures of voluntary corporate commitments

The author questions whether the AI Safety community has passed the point of no return in controlling AI risks as of early 2026

Despite the pessimistic framing, the author ultimately concludes the answer is 'no' based on Betteridge's Law

Voluntary commitments from AI companies to gate scaling on concrete evaluations appear unlikely to hold as a safety mechanism

The 2024 plan for AI safety, previously outlined in an RSP blog post, is now viewed as significantly less viable

The author plans to explain reasons for pessimism in part 2 while offering more hopeful arguments in a forthcoming part 3