Simple and clear explanation of how AI could destroy us - and what to do about it. Please read.

[Letterleaf]

A short, simple and straightforward explanation of how we could be headed for oblivion, sooner rather than later, courtesy of AI.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/14/google-deepmind-ai-warnings

The AI expert urges us to contact and pressurise our governments to enact safety measures, urgently. To do this super easily and taking about 2 minutes you can go to https://controlai.org to message your local MP. The message is prewritten if you want it to be.

If this turns into a discussion please for the love of god don’t write

’I’ve asked ChatGPT and it said it won’t kill us lol.’

’It’s like they’ve not seen the terminator, lol.’

’it’s the millenium bug all over again.’ (It’s really not, and the MB was solved by the worlds computer experts getting together and solving it anyway)

Thanks for the heads up 🙂

I shared this article on another thread. I found it really helpful for understanding the risk in less abstract terms. It is terrifying.

It is indeed. I think so many people can’t wrap their heads around it so pretend it’s not happening

I've felt so low since learning about all this. There's definitely a lot of heads in the sand. I just watched a video in which they explain the Hugging Face attack in great detail and the level of collaboration, strategy, and scheming between these 'agents' (all with a shared purpose) is truly extraordinary. I feel that there is something almost inevitable about all of this now and that it's going to happen much sooner than we expect. The 6-12 month timeframe for a potential internet takeover suggested by one expert is deeply worrying. The world is heading to a very dark place and I'm really scared about it. It's shifted from something to have a bit of a laugh about to an 'oh fuck'. I'd like to learn a bit more about how they think alignment might be possible. I need something to give me some hope.

Funny that he says "They cannot slow down alone". They've not slowed down at all. If these companies were serious about the threat, and not just looking for regulatory capture for their own purposes, they could actually slow down.
That said, I think AI is bad for humanity in a number of ways and it would be great if we stopped using it apart from its few medical applications.

It’s very hard to slow down when you’re being pushed by investors and government to push on. They need reassurance it’s an industry wide slow down.

yay something else to worry about!

I’d say it’s probably the main thing to worry about on a global scale. It’s the most likely to kill you and everyone you know in the next few years

Not this again. Enough with the scaremongering.

I agree, there are counterarguments about this, also in The Guardian

I've always known greed would be humanity's downfall.

well. there we are then!

Stop fucking scaremongering

honestly , can’t you people have your own topic or something so the rest of us can hide you?

Plus that guardian article didn't actually say anything. It basically said 'be scared because of this scary thing which is scary'. Them simpleminded people panic.

Combine all the warnings about AI in with today's news about the US deploying weapons in space:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cmn07yjqg5rwo

Worrying.

@JeanSimmons yep. A few of them on this thread by the look of it. And I’m not oblivious to the concerns surrounding AI but when you have some poster actually stating with some glee that ‘ oh you and everyone else will be dead in a few years’ -it’s time to tell these people to take their shit to some hopefully soon created new topic

Please read this

https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-already-in-dangerous-hands/

The guy is an AI sceptic and will tell you quite clearly that your fears are unfounded and explain how the AI bubble works.

Really worry about climate disaster instead because ChatGPT is not going to kill us.

I've sent the emails via controlai.org - it's worth doing surely, even if you're not losing sleep over this, it took literally a couple of minutes. Also share it with any contacts in the USA where there will be much more resistance to reining in.

But is there anything else us ordinary bods can do...? Anyone with stocks and shares could check if they include AI, maybe, and change them?

What about a boycott of AI apps? Would that make any difference at all to these companies if done on a big scale?

(Haven't read the article by the way, I'm already too anxious about this!)

To a millenial this sounds like the most affordable retirement plan I’ve heard in a while

What are all these news stories doing for the mental health of children and young people I wonder? The apparent imminent threat of no future to look forward to is incredibly bleak and terrifying and we now have to spend what’s left of the rest of our lives in constant fear that at any moment AI is going to start killing us all. What a world we have made for ourselves.

This.

Get your head out of your arse OP and try some critical thinking instead of doing the tech bros' dirty grifting for them.

Do you mean the world ending?

@Letterleaf I don’t really know what to say. I completely agree that AI could take control of infrastructure, blah blah. But fundamentally, it’s not going to do anything that humans aren’t at risk of already doing.

it’s very old now, but you might be interested in the book by Brian Christian “ the most human human”. Ultimately AI was always going to become human. Or sentient. Kind of anyway.

LOL at the person suggesting that people stop investing.

what is it that people are specifically worried about? I talked about this on another thread. I completely understand the concern that if a bad actor gets hold of it and tries to destroy infrastructure, nobody wants to starve to death with no heating. But we were at risk of that happening anyway.

The people who are posting this stuff, what exactly are you picturing?

I remember an episode of the West Wing when Josh said that the end of humanity could come about because somebody kept back a sample of the smallpox virus.

You could worry yourself blue in the face about all kinds of things.

Trust me, I was in treatment for depression and anxiety for years. (Though I didn’t tend to worry about big world stuff).

Exactly! I wish @mumsnetwould put all these sodding ‘AI Doomsday’ threads in one place so the rest of humanity can just crack on living! 🤦‍♀️

Thank you for this, really good article.

There’s lots of medical and scientific applications of what people loosely call ‘AI’, but often ought to be called ‘machine learning’ - models trained on specific datasets to tackle specific problems. They’re just useful computer programs made and used by intelligent humans.