Here’s What the AI Apocalypse Could Look Like

The debate of whether AI can kill us has been everywhere lately, but what would an actual AI catastrophe look like? This week, Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, and Leah Feiger break down three real-world scenarios experts worry the most about—including hacked water supplies, bioweapons, and autonomous robots. We also discuss the highlights of Salesforce’s annual conference, where OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei defended their positions on AI safety. Plus, Leah tells us how this backlash against AI has become a rare bipartisan flash point, to the point that Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon shared a stage over it this week.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• China Isn’t Buying Silicon Valley’s Call for an AI Slowdown
• Washington Won’t Be Regulating AI Anytime Soon
• Why So Many AI Researchers Think the Machines Could Kill Everyone
• OpenAI Wants to Know if an AI Industry Slowdown Would Even Be Legal

You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at [email protected].

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Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, contributing editor.

Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.

Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science.

Brian Barrett: Oh.

Zoë Schiffer: I know.

Brian Barrett: Zoë, I see what you did there. Wow.

Leah Feiger: I'm definitely in the camp that says we should be very concerned about this technology, how it's getting regulated, how it's getting utilized, the people in control. I don't disagree. And on the other hand, this also just reads like a fever-dream pitch to someone's massive IPO in the making.

Leah Feiger: Really?