The idea that AI could wipe out humanity has officially gone mainstream. Departing Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's warnings about self-improving AI as an existential threat caused enough of a stir to land him on CNN and Fox News. A number of US politicians picked up the topic on social media, and Joe Rogan devoted an entire episode to AI safety.

Other safety researchers at Anthropic and OpenAI supported Coxon's views. Paul Christiano warned that without better oversight, humanity could permanently lose control over a superintelligence. Christiano just joined the OpenAI Foundation board and its Safety and Security Committee, which oversees the company's safety practices, though without voting rights.

If this is making you anxious, don't panic. Multiple layers of cultural and financial interests are at play behind these warnings. That doesn't mean all safety concerns are nonsense, as rogue hacking agents from OpenAI and Anthropic have shown. But the full extinction scenario remains an extreme and contested position. It's also unclear whether anything resembling a super AI could even emerge from today's technology. So it might just be Silicon Valley mass psychosis. Or it might not, in which case: good luck.

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