Geoffrey Hinton and over 400 scientists urge air-gapping for hacking-capable AI

More than 400 scientists want the most dangerous AI models unplugged. Not shut down, just disconnected from the internet by default. The signatories include Turing Award winners Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio. Their open letter targets a specific class of system: AI models capable of hacking. What the letter actually asks for The open letter was published around October 13, 2026. It carries approximately 400 to 420 signatures from computer scientists and AI researchers based in 34 countries. Its central demand is simple. Organizations building advanced AI should place cyber-capable models under high-assurance containment, with air-gapping as the default setting. Air-gapping is the digital version of keeping something in a locked room with no windows. The system runs on hardware isolated from the internet and from outside networks. The letter goes beyond a single technical fix. It calls for an international body to standardize how AI containment is done. That body would also maintain a public registry of containment failures. Beyond Hinton and Bengio, the named signatories include Stuart Russell and Ron Rivest. Why now The letter did not appear in a vacuum. It follows several inc...