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The case for AI doom isn't very convincing

understandingai.org · 2,156 words · saved by 1 readers

A striking thing about the AI industry is how many insiders believe AI could pose an existential risk to humanity. Just last week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei described himself as “relatively an optimist” about AI. But he said there was a “25 percent chance that things go really really badly.” Among the risks Amodei worries about: “the autonomous danger of the model.” In a 2023 interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was blunter, stating that the worst-case scenario was “lights out for all of us.” No one has done more to raise these concerns than rationalist gadfly Eliezer Yudkowsky. In a new book with co-author Nate Soares, Yudkowsky doesn’t mince words: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. Soares and Yudkowsky believe that if anyone invents superintelligent AI, it will take over the world and kill everyone. Normally, when someone predicts the literal end of the world, you can write them off as a kook. But Yudkowsky is hard to dismiss. He has been warning about these dangers since the early 20

The case for AI doom isn't very convincing I read Eliezer Yudkowsky's new book, "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies." Timothy B. Lee Sep 25, 2025 204 161 21 Share A striking thing about the AI industry is how many insiders believe AI could pose an existential risk to humanity. Just last week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei described himself as “relatively an optimist” about AI. But he said there was a “25 percent chance that things go really really badly.” Among the risks Amodei worries about: “the autonomous danger of the model.” In a 2023 interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was blunter , stating th

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