{"id":6602,"date":"2026-09-16T17:49:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T15:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6602"},"modified":"2026-09-16T17:49:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T15:49:27","slug":"super-intelligent-ai-dumb-billionaires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2026-09-16\/super-intelligent-ai-dumb-billionaires\/","title":{"rendered":"Super-intelligent AI won\u2019t kill us. Dumb billionaires are doing that all by themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The super-rich have already screwed up the planet in their pursuit of power and profit. AI simply gives them a new tool to hasten their story \u2013 and ours \u2013 to its dramatic finale<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It is extremely difficult for ordinary people, myself very much included, to assess what is at stake with the rapid advances in AI. But then again, as becomes clearer by the day, leading AI researchers seem to have little sense of where things are headed next either.<\/p>\n

If the AI firms manage to develop super-intelligence, as senior staff claim is possible soon, that intelligence will be vastly superior in its problem-solving capabilities than any human. By definition, no one will have any idea what it can do or what it is up to.<\/p>\n

Autonomous, self-improving super-intelligence \u2013 assuming it can be engineered \u2013 will be driven by a logic and goals we cannot begin to fathom. And, it seems wise to assume, it will probably have no more regard for us and our concerns than we do for less intelligent species, such as ants or spiders.<\/p>\n

What is needed now \u2013 at least on the precautionary principle \u2013 is less a scientific debate, one grappling in the dark, than a metaphysical one. But, in case you hadn\u2019t noticed, modern western societies only value things that are material, measurable and profitable.<\/p>\n

Warnings about the grave dangers of AI within the tech industry are not new. But they had tended to make little impact on media or public discourse.<\/p>\n

Until recently, the promised AI revolution had mainly prompted debates about the tech\u2019s role in social destabilisation, the replacement of the human workforce, and the environmental toll of data centres springing up everywhere. But those anxieties were counterbalanced by excitement at the potential for eliminating disease, increasing human life-span and securing \u201cabundance\u201d for all.<\/p>\n

That all changed this month. Existing unease about AI radically reordering our societies shifted into something far darker: predictions that AI could wipe out all human life on the planet, possibly in a few years.<\/p>\n

AI arms race<\/h3>\n
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The alarm was sounded in a viral post last week from AI researcher Jacob Coxon. After resigning from Anthropic \u2013 usually painted as the good guys in the industry \u2013 Coxon warned<\/a> that \u201cthe people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that an AI arms race between several big US tech companies meant the guard-rails designed to make sure they do not lose control of any emerging general \u2013 or beyond it super \u2013 intelligence had been stripped away.<\/p>\n

Disconcertingly, his immediate boss at Anthropic responded to his post by agreeing. He estimated<\/a> that the chances of AI leading to human extinction within the next decade at more than 10 per cent. How much more was left unanswered.<\/p>\n

Other venerable figures in the industry, such as Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, have echoed the doomsayers.<\/p>\n