So … are we now okay with panicking over the threat of artificial intelligence?
The events of the last 24 hours are stunning. And not in a good way. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of tech, and it’s unfolding right now.
Here’s a start. Maybe you’ve already heard about the guy who resigned from OpenAI. He warned that the technology could kill everybody before the end of the decade.
He made this announcement just 20 hours ago:
Is this really true? Maybe Coxon is just a disgruntled employee. We need to find out what other insiders think.
As if in answer to this question, another AI scientist — Evan Hubinger at Anthropic — quickly moved to endorse Coxon’s concerns.
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The AI fanboys are trying to defuse this situation. But their responses fall apart at the slightest touch. Consider the smear that this is just a PR campaign. Really? Others are hinting it could be a Chinese plot. Yeah, sure …
But the biggest lie is the claim that these people don’t know what they are talking about. The reality is that they understand this subject better than anybody.
What’s happening here is obvious — eight different people building this technology are afraid of what they’re seeing. But they don’t have the power individually to stop the insanity.
If this isn’t a call to action, I don’t know what is. Trillions of dollars are getting pumped into a runaway technology, and the public already hates it intensely. Now the people making it happen are warning it just might kill everybody.
This demands a response from the highest circles of power and authority. If that doesn’t happen, we will live to regret this inaction. And that’s the best case scenario. The worst is that there won’t be anyone left to regret a thing.
I have heard “the sky is falling” WAY too many times to worry about this.
This comment in Ted’s article made me laugh:
“For example, someone uses it to develop a dangerous pathogen that nobody has resistance to and releases it.”
We already tried that pre-2019. Wuhan flu, anyone?
It’s really hard to kill everyone, or even a lot of people. By “a lot” I mean more than 10% or 20% percent of people. Sure, the bubonic plague killed more. That wasn’t AI, just mother nature, though.
Comment by James Quigley — September 10, 2026 @ 14:58
The various plagues that swept across Eurasia were vastly more deadly than the WuFlu, but the cultures that suffered the Plague of Justian nearly destroyed the (Eastern) Roman Empire, and the Black Death killed around 30-35% of the population (lower in some areas, much higher in others). WuFlu wasn’t even a rounding error in comparison. Economically, WuFlu was batting way above average, thanks to the much more complex inter-relations of national economies in the 20th and 21st centuries.*
* Of course, most of that economic damage was government-inflicted rather than directly as a result of WuFlu.
Comment by Nicholas — September 10, 2026 @ 15:30
Yes, I know Wuhan flu began in late 2019, but the science started way before that.
Comment by James Quigley — September 10, 2026 @ 14:59