AI might take us all down, just not the way you think

"Neither company is acting responsibly," Coxon wrote on X.

Imen Ben Youssef / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.

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I don't mean to be dramatic — ok, maybe a little — but there's a lot of AI apocalypse talk these days.

An Anthropic researcher's resignation and warning earlier this week that AI giants are " gambling with our lives " sparked a wider conversation.

Mainly: Is AI actually going to kill us all? The debate quickly broke into the mainstream, with billionaire hedge fund investor Paul Tudor Jones calling AI a "Category 6 hurricane." Even my 71-year-old mom texted me about whether this was "truth or hysteria." Let's start with the basics: Can AI really wipe us out? And if so, how would it do it? BI's Thibault Spirlet posed those questions to senior AI researchers .

They outlined short-term risks, like AI fueling human attacks, and wider concerns as we cede more control to AI.

Hollywood has also spent decades imagining how it would all go down .

As for the odds of all this happening, that's a mixed bag.

One notable mention is Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "Godfather of AI," who said there's a 10% chance AI wipes out humanity in a decade .

Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher, also spoke to BI about why " AI is not loyal to us ." But why not go straight to the source? We decided to ask AI how it would go about destroying humanity .

It turns we'll ultimately be the ones to blame.

Not everyone is taking such a somber view.