As Private James Frazer often predicted on BBC’s classic, “Dad’s Army”, “We’re doomed!”
It’s bad enough that the planet is burning and the future is bleak for most animals and plants.
But our species has found a way to quicken our own demise!
I listened yesterday (10/09/2026)/ to Professor Stuart Russell, eminent AI scientist, tell the BBC Radio 4 Today programme we will have no say in our future if we create technology that is far more intelligent than us.
Prof Russell explained we won’t be able to understand what AI does. If you were to ask chimpanzees how humans will make them extinct, they would find it very difficult to describe.
AI could maybe devise a way to deplete oxygen in the atmosphere to kill us, or release an unstoppable pathogen. AI is almost daily solving problems (e.g. “The Millennium Prize Problems”) in ways we already struggle to comprehend. We just won’t understand how it thinks and acts as it rids the planet of humans.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
A Guardian piece asks, “AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts: but how seriously should we take them?’
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/09/ai-superintelligence-risks-warnings-scientists-politicians
Very!
A 10% chance doesn’t sound too risky – although that chance grows with time – but, if before an operation you’re surgeon told you they’re was a 1 in 10 chance you would die, you would take it pretty seriously.
Anthropic, has recently said we are about a year away from its AI being able to write the next generation of AI. At that point we lose control and super intelligence becomes unstoppable. https://share.google/LStRdjawLaTppSwwk
Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, saying artificial intelligence could kill everyone by the end of the decade. https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843
And that is a revised estimate, previously it was within around 30 years!
US Senator Bernie Sanders has said you’d have to be a moron not to say “slow AI down”.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m003197m
But we are not protecting ourselves, corporations and governments just see dollars. Another dire example of profiteers who are too busy chasing money to care.