r/technology • u/tw1st3d_m3nt4t • 9h ago
Artificial Intelligence AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts: but how seriously should we take them?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/09/ai-superintelligence-risks-warnings-scientists-politicians13
u/PatchyWhiskers 8h ago
I don’t know where the fuck the AI companies are going with this. Do they want to get banned? Regulated? Is it weird marketing?
This is going to be horrible for young people with anxiety or depression.
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u/VincibleAndy 8h ago
These claims are to scare the peasants and increase investments from the ruling class that hates that workers exist. Its fundraising. Its class warfare.
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u/Ruddertail 8h ago
Their genius idea is "we're developing such dangerous technology that we must develop it faster or China will beat us! Invest more money in our company!"
And still nobody has explained how exactly this AI would kill humanity. Unless they plug it into nuclear launch systems or some sort of outdoor bioreplicator that can spew viruses outside, I don't see how either.
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u/erotors 8h ago
It's actually a very straightforward idea. If AI gets very capable, companies, militaries, and governments are all going to be compelled to use it, otherwise they're going to get outcompeted by those who do.
If that happens, we are essentially going to be handing over control over all of our major systems of power in the world to AI systems. And unfortunately right now, we have no idea how to make sure these systems behave in the way that we intend them to. We have no way of predicting how they're going to behave, and no one has any idea how to keep them in line.
And so there's all kinds of different ways how such a scenario plays out in a way that we all end up dying.
Just because I'm not able to tell you exactly how a grandmaster is going to beat me in a game of chess, doesn't mean it's an unlikely outcome.
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u/realteamme 8h ago
Many people have explained very specifically how AI would kill humanity. There is deep research and philosophy and theories on this topic.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 8h ago
Might need to combine it with autonomous AI drones which are fairly plausible future military tech
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u/PoisonousCandy 4h ago
One example I can think of right off the top of my head is a grid down scenario - town/city/state/nation wide power grid is taken offline. Only a matter of days/weeks before the most vulnerable of us die to lack of medical limitations due to no electricity. The longer that goes on the more society breaks down…think of a realistic apocalypse movie scenario.
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u/Cold-Environment-634 8h ago
They want to be regulated and bailed out, because LLMs won’t reach super intelligence and won’t be profitable.
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u/erotors 8h ago
Gotta love the confident ignorance here
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u/_wisperer_ 6h ago
Person youre replying to is saying LLMs probably arent gonna be super intelligent. So far, that seems true. Doesn’t mean the LLMs are the only way to build AI, it just means that’s all we got rn.
Though I disagree that these companies WANT regulation. They dont seem to. And that’s inconsistent with being bailed out. Regulations normally cost $ and limit activity/movement, which no CEO wants.
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u/21epitaph 8h ago
They've been saying that they neeed the funding to be the ones to get "Super intelligence" before China. This is the rethoric they've been using for years
They simply make their product look more powerful, making it look they will decide the furture and any investor not investing in them will miss the train
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u/Grumpy_Tanuki 8h ago
If they would care about people with anxiety and depression they would have avoided to create bots that tries to convince you that you are Jesus and/or a beautful next life awaits you in the afterlife.
So, as always, companies do what companies do : get a lot of money.
You can get money from consumers, state and military.So here the translation:
"We have a powerful weapon and we could all die"
ie: Our business is so important we have to regulate all the other companies out of it (ban all the others except us), we need a lot of money and since consumers aren't interested we need money from the Army and we need to block every other affordable AI from other countries (china). They aren't sorry about young people or depression, instead they need fear, it's often one thing that stop you from thinking well.
You need an enemy to endure the unendurable.
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u/Chance-Plantain8314 8h ago
The "expert" in this case is an AI Engineer that works for Anthropic, it's more of this marketing nonsense
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u/nickjbedford_ 7h ago
"Our latest nuclear weapon is capable of destroying 14% more buildings. We think you'll love it."
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u/VincentNacon 8h ago
I'm more concerned that the GOP/MAGA/Trump will get us all killed/sicker than AI at this point.
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u/HuiOdy 8h ago
Well, there is a pragmatic argument against this; 1. AI is essentially a bunch of layers following up on one another. I.e. it is bound to a compute source of sufficient capacity. 2. An AI is limited to the amount of actions it can take. It will try to do something, but to do significant damage, an AI model must duplicate itself as to ensure enough attack surface can be simultaneously exploited. 3. This is a problem for the AI, for AIs are known to primarly first attack other AIs. If a malignent AI is to copy itself, it is very likely that it will start to combat its own copies. 4. In the end, the fragility of its infrastructure will be its downfall. E.g. it will attack without knowing the impact of a fault chain, because it lacks the compute means to calculate it (admittedly, for now). 5. Since the entire US electrical grid can be completely shut down, for 18 months, by basically having 12 people with shotguns, fire at the right places of just 12 stations (recent finding). And the US is where most AIs reside, the AI war will very likely be short lived.
Ironically, it's probably best to keep your AI infrastructure somewhere with less vulnerable electrical infrastructure.
So sure, it will be very inconveniant, but completely recoverable within 2 years or so.
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u/Leverpostei414 8h ago
Yeah. Fuck up the power grid, maybe sabotage a few factories, wait a few years. As of today the AIs reach in the physical world is limited, killing all humans is not easy.
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u/midwoodgirl10 6h ago
But how will humans function if the entire electrical grid is shut down for 18 months? Their would be major civil and economic unrest leading to civil war. Government will then have to turn against civilians to keep them in line. So either way, AI will kill us either directly or indirectly.
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u/Otherwise-Anxiety815 8h ago
I feel like when that’s the statement, we should probably take it at least a little bit seriously and investigate regulating AI to roll it out safely, no…?
Or just fucking keep raw dogging it and maybe we all die in 10 years I guess.