As The Guardian has noted this week:
Artificial intelligence could kill off humanity within the decade, according to three researchers with the industry giant Anthropic, one of whom has quit his job in protest.
The latest doom-laden predictions came in posts on social media on Tuesday by a researcher who said he resigned because Anthropic and his previous employer, OpenAI, were ignoring or, at best, mishandling their response to the threat.
But it's adding to GDP in the meantime. So that's OK then.
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As has often been pointed out here, in the REAL world, people are becoming more ill, the common wheal is falling apart, the environment is under huge stress, systems are failing, the human propensity to kill each other is growing and all we can do is concentrate on making artificial intelligence and fake worlds (the new religion).
We need the ‘power of now’ right quick.
What worries me more than even the craziness of the legitimate developers is the strong possibility that rogue players will manage to obtain the technology. Then we really are in the proverbial!
As “G D P is an incredibly relevant facet of capitalism” (AI Overview) might the attached article be relevant to your serously concerning article?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/09/11/capitalism-is-waging-war-on-palestine-while-creating-a-burning-planet-an-interview-with-chris-kaspar-de-ploeg/
John & I were discussing this earlier this morning. Saw long report on Sky News sometime between 1am, when I woke up, and 7am, when J woke up. Especially early for him, I might add, since he was woken up to make me a dark coffee with 4 heaped tea spoons of brown sugar at 4am when I became desperate for coffee and toast fried in butter as I was STARVING! Forgot to ask for the grated cheese though. Sigh.
We agreed that WW3 could start any time now, if the AIs went really lunatic mad. Eeeek! I pray that doesn’t happen before I’m well and truly dead and buried in my coffin. One can only hope for that though. (Sighs even more heavily than before)
BTW in case anyone wonders where I’ve been since last August… Been in & out of hospital, 1st in Wales, now back at RLUH, the uni hospital here. Food super yummy, and made loadsa friends while outside smoking, come rain or shine. I have no idea what’s wrong with me, neither do the docs. They’ve removed 3 ulcers from stomach, a nodule from one of my lungs, nothing sinister found. So back to square 1 again. Think they may give me another full body scan soon – have appt with doc later this week to chat over the last results from op. Dunno what they’ll try next though. Was lab tech 1st job, my guess might be leucemia, (sp?) though hope not.
Have gone from 16 stone a couple of years ago to around 36K last week. Prescription is “eat anything fattening”! So loadsa chocs, fried bread and egg buttered with at least 1/4″ of butter, loadsa whisky 4pain with fruit drinks. Still barely any weight gain though., no appetite really. Bit worrying
Go well, Maggie.
I had been missing you.
As I asked elsewhere on the blog today: Does anyone understand the mechanism by which a naughty computer will manage to kill me and everyone else on Earth within about 40 months? On our admittedly quite sloping 2 acres here in Tasmania we’ll be planting spuds this weekend, we have a spring-fed pond on the property and enough chickens to keep us supplied with plenty of eggs (I’ve never yet butchered one but if I was REALLY hungry…) Exactly how is AI going to part 8,300,000,000 of us body from soul in so short a time?
Triggering multiple nuclear strikes?
Well as long as there is growth then Pedal back Andy and John from the office will be happy! Thats all there is in their tiny little world unencumbered by climate breakdown, increasing poverty etc.
We are quite capable of killing ourselves off. Crossing a tipping point for non-anthropogenic warming, such as the Clathrate Gun, leading to a Hot House Earth incompatible with complex life seems distinctly possible at the moment given the underestimation of climate sensitivity and aerosol masking. I find the lack of faith displayed by mainstream media disturbing.
Most of the scare-mongering hype put out by the AI companies is pure marketing. They need to boost their prospective IPOs and maintain the circle jerk of funding to survive.
I am very much on the sceptical side of the AI debate and think that this claim about the potential threat to humanity is simply not accurate (Cal Newport, Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron are useful counterpoints to AI hype).
However, the fact that many in the media are taking this threat seriously does make it extraordinary that governments are happy to let these companies work away at a technology which could potentially end humanity. Not only that, but they permit them to test hacking programs out which would be considered serious crimes if anyone else did this.
It’s an odd state of affairs when continuing to financially support disabled citizens is considered to be more risky than pursuing a technology that might end humanity.
My hope, if I am wrong and AI super intelligence is just around the corner, is that the first command someone inputs to the AI is to redistribute the wealth of all billionaires equitably throughout the world…
I assume that they mean that AI learns to act independently.
In my opinion, AI just simply can’t be allowed to act independently as long as it can’t be taken to responsibility for what it’s doing.
It’s then like a superpower toddler with a gun or access to a big red button.
And we already see what superpowers are getting away with nowadays and how do you punish an AGI anyway?
The parents of that toddler, politicians and companies, will have to take responsibility, they have trained it / allowed it to be trained.
And they will be the first to flee it.
What I’m curious about is what an AI would need to be responsible for its own actions?
I think it would need much more human characteristics.
Above all self-criticism and fairness.
But then the valuable use as a tool, that needs to be checked and used carefully, will be compromised.
I’d say, if it stays around, it’s only a good use as a tool that people need to learn how to use by basically being critical about it.
One could make (naturally free of charge) AI Licenses, like Driving Licenses.
This could merely consist of some AI statements where people simply need to click on the linked sources to check if the statements true or not.
Also it’s important that AI reduces its carbon footprint by a lot.
If that means making it slower, so be it.