Artificial general intelligence built like “agents” could prove dangerous as its creators might lose control of the system, two of of the world’s most prominent AI scientists told CNBC.

In the latest episode of CNBC’s “Beyond The Valley” podcast released on Tuesday, Max Tegmark, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the President of the Future of Life Institute, and Yoshua Bengio, dubbed one of the “godfathers of AI” and a professor at the Université de Montréal, spoke about their concerns about artificial general intelligence, or AGI. The term broadly refers to AI systems that are smarter than humans.

Their fears stem from the world’s biggest firms now talking about “AI agents” or “agentic AI” — which companies claim will allow AI chatbots to act like assistants or agents and assist in work and everyday life. Industry estimates vary on when AGI will come into existence.

With that concept comes the idea that AI systems could have some “agency” and thoughts of their own, according to Bengio.

“Researchers in AI have been inspired by human intelligence to build machine intelligence, and, in humans, there’s a mix of both the ability to understand the world like pure intelligence and the agentic behavior, meaning … to use your knowledge to achieve goals,” Bengio told CNBC’s “Beyond The Valley.”

“Right now, this is how we’re building AGI: we are trying to make them agents that understand a lot about the world, and then can act accordingly. But this is actually a very dangerous proposition.”

Bengio added that pursuing this approach would be like “creating a new species or a new intelligent entity on this planet” and “not knowing if they’re going to behave in ways that agree with our needs.”

“So instead, we can consider, what are the scenarios in which things go badly and they all rely on agency? In other words, it is because the AI has its own goals that we could be in trouble.”

The idea of self-preservation could also kick in, as AI gets even smarter, Bengio said.

“Do we want to be in competition with entities that are smarter than us? It’s not a very reassuring gamble, right? So we have to understand how self-preservation can emerge as a goal in AI.”

“My guess is we will hit AGI sooner than most people in the world think and it will matter much less,” Altman said in December.

Shares of Doximity popped 21% on Thursday after the company reported third-quarter fiscal 2025 results that beat analysts’ expectations for revenue and offered rosy guidance.

Here’s how the company did:

• Earnings per share: 37 cents, may not compare with the 34 cents expected by LSEG
• Revenue: $168.6 million vs. $152.8 million expected by LSEG

Doximity is a digital platform for medical professionals that helps clinicians stay current on medical news, manage paperwork, find referrals and carry out telehealth appointments with patients. The company primarily generates revenue through its telehealth tools, hiring solutions and marketing offerings for clients such as pharmaceutical companies.

Doximity’s revenue increased 25% in its third quarter from $135.3 million during the same period last year, according to a release.

For its fiscal fourth quarter, Doximity said it expects to report revenue between $132.5 million and $133.5 million, compared with analysts’ estimates of $123.8 million.

The company also raised guidance for its full fiscal year, and said it expects to report revenue between $564.6 million and $565.6 million, up from the range the company shared last quarter, when it expected $535 million to $540 million. Analysts were expecting $540 million for the year.

“We’re proud to deliver another quarter of record engagement in Q3, with over 610,000 unique providers using our clinical workflow tools,” Doximity CEO Jeff Tangney said in a statement. “Our AI tools grew the fastest last quarter, up 60% over the prior quarter, while our newsfeed surpassed more than one million unique providers.”

The company reported net income of $75.2 million, or 37 cents per share, during its third quarter, up from $48.0 million, or 24 cents per share, a year prior. Doximity’s adjusted EBITDA was $102.0 million, up 39% year over year.

Doximity has been a bright spot within the battered digital health sector, which has faced a reckoning as companies have had to adjust to a more muted growth environment. The company’s stock price more than doubled in 2024.

Whole Foods, the Amazon-owned grocery chain, has asked the National Labor Relations Board to overturn a union victory at a Philadelphia store, pointing to President Donald Trump’s recent ouster of several top officials at the agency.

Trump last week fired former NLRB chair Gwynne Wilcox and the agency’s top lawyer, Jennifer Abruzzo. Wilcox’s firing leaves just two remaining members on the five-member NLRB panel, which already had two vacancies at the time she was dismissed. Wilcox sued Trump on Wednesday, alleging her firing was a “blatant violation” of law.

With only two sitting members on the board, the NLRB lacks the necessary quorum to issue decisions on labor disputes, stymying a key function of the labor board.

Whole Foods is disputing the results of a January election at its Spring Garden, Philadelphia, store, where employees voted 130-100 in favor of joining the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The vote marked the first successful organizing effort at Whole Foods since Amazon acquired the upscale grocer for $13.7 billion in 2017.

In a filing submitted to the NLRB on Monday, Whole Foods argued that “in the absence of a Board quorum, the Regional Director lacks statutory authority to investigate objections or certify the results, or otherwise engage in representation case procedures, including investigating objections or conducting the objections process.”

The objection threatens to set up long legal negotiations and further delays to the start of negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement with workers and the UFCW.

Wendell Young, president of UFCW Local 1776, the chapter representing the workers, said in a statement that the union “fully expected Whole Foods to try to stall this process.”

“Amazon has a well-documented history of using baseless objections to undermine the rights of workers seeking representation, and this case is no different,” Young said. “Their goal is clear: they don’t want to bargain in good faith with their workers. But this fight is far from over.”

Whole Foods previously said it was “disappointed” by the outcome of the election. It also argued in the Monday filing that the NLRB “tainted” the results of the election by limiting the company from communicating its views on unionization. Last November, the agency ruled that captive audience meetings, or mandatory employee meetings typically called by employers during union campaigns, are unlawful.

Whole Foods also accused the UFCW in its objections of intimidating employees who supported the company.

The company told CNBC in a statement that the UFCW 1776 “illegally interfered” in its employees “right to a fair vote” at the Philadelphia store.

Amazon has also faced mounting labor pressure in it warehouse operations of late. Workers at Amazon’s sprawling Garner, North Carolina, warehouse will begin voting next week on whether to unionize. In December, Amazon delivery and warehouse workers, alongside the Teamsters union, held strikes at seven facilities during the peak holiday shopping season.

As part of her lawsuit, Wilcox is seeking an injunction for her immediate reinstatement to the board. She said her firing amounted to “an immediate and indefinite halt” to all of the NLRB’s regulatory activity.

— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.

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