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Hundreds of artificial intelligence scientists and tech executives signed a one-sentence letter that succinctly warns AI poses an existential threat to humanity, the latest example of a growing chorus of alarms raised by the very people creating the technology, the Washington Post reported. “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” according to the statement released Tuesday by the nonprofit Center for AI Safety. The open letter was signed by more than 350 researchers and executives, including chatbot ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, as well as 38 members of Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence unit.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, calling on Congress to pass legislation to regulate the development of AI at a time when the technology is gaining traction across the tech industry and beyond, YahooFinance.com reported. “We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,” Altman said in his opening remarks. “For example, the US government might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements for development and release of AI models above a threshold of capabilities.” Both IBM Chief Privacy and Trust Officer Christina Montgomery and NYU Professor Gary Marcus, who also testified during the hearing, similarly called for regulating AI and making the technology more transparent so that users know when they are interacting with AI. AI, and specifically generative AI that can be used to generate text, images, and more using models trained on data collected via the internet, has exploded in popularity since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022. Since then, Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, has launched its generative AI-powered Bing search engine and chat bot. Last week, Google debuted a series of new technologies that use generative AI as part of its Google I/O conference including a version of its powerful search engine.

An attorney who represents survivors of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of New Orleans bankruptcy is asking a newly appointed federal judge to toss out rulings from U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry, who recused himself from the case last month amid questions about his ties to the Roman Catholic church, NOLA.com reported. Judge Guidry, who as a district court judge was tasked with hearing appeals related to the bankruptcy case, recused himself April 28 after the Associated Press reported that he had donated $50,000 to local Catholic charitable organizations. In court documents filed Monday, New Orleans attorney Richard Trahant asked Guidry’s successor in the case, U.S. District Judge Barry Ashe, to vacate two rulings by Guidry because of the circumstances surrounding his recusal.

A federal judge overseeing the New Orleans Roman Catholic bankruptcy recused himself in a late-night reversal that came a week after an Associated Press report showed he donated tens of thousands of dollars to the archdiocese and consistently ruled in favor of the church in the case involving nearly 500 clergy sex abuse victims, NPR.org reported. U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry initially announced hours after the AP report that he would stay on the case, citing the opinion of fellow federal judges that no “reasonable person” could question his impartiality. But amid mounting pressure and persistent questions, he changed course late Friday in a terse, one-page filing. “I have decided to recuse myself from this matter in order to avoid any possible appearance of personal bias or prejudice,” Guidry wrote. The 62-year-old jurist has overseen the 3-year-old bankruptcy in an appellate role, and his recusal is likely to throw the case into disarray and trigger new hearings and appeals of every consequential ruling he’s made. But legal experts say it was the only action to take under the circumstances, citing federal law that calls on judges to step aside in any proceeding in which their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”