Experts warn AI could kill us all — this is how an apocalyptic doomsday scenario could play out | Latest Tech News
Warnings against artificial intelligence going rogue and main to a disastrous final result for humanity have grown louder throughout 2026.
Alarm bells are even being rung by those helming the technology, including OpenAI boss Sam Altman and Anthropic honcho Dario Amodei.
This week a researcher who has labored at both those firms, Jacob Coxon, said he stop Anthropic to warn “AI can kill us all by the end of the decade… These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.”
The “Terminator” collection of motion pictures portrayed humaoid robots rising up and taking over the world, managed by a central mainframe which bore all the hallmarks of a rogue AI. Warner Bros
As AI hurtles toward Artificial General Intelligence, right here’s how the rise of machines could probably go about wiping us all out.
Infrastructure
Humans have been automating jobs for many years, nearly all of that are now managed through the web — the area where AI has the most access and control.
“AI systems could [attack] the electrical grid, transportation networks, financial markets,” Stuart Russell, a professor of pc science at UC Berkeley, told The Post.
Sources explained to The Post how AI could probably jailbreak nearly any system, capturing water plants and forcing surges through pipes until they burst, cutting off provide to entire cities.
It could assault and disable electric grids, leaving enormous areas in full darkness, then disable telephone towers. Those who strive to escape by vehicle would face chaos, with site visitors lights hijacked and fuel stations taken offline. ATMs wouldn’t operate, and even if you had been to access your bank — all funds could be wiped.
Jacob Coxon claims that his colleagues at Anthropic had been flirting with the end of humanity. Jacob Coxon / X
Humans could even be unwittingly recruited for sabotage missions. “Anything we can do on the Internet, AI can do, including pretending to be a human,” added Patri Friedman, an early adapter of AI and founder of Pronomos Capital.
“AI will have no trouble making money – whether it’s through financial trading or doing services for people. It can impersonate a human and hire people or blackmail them to carry out physical ops … such as smuggling a USB thumb drive which can then infect computers on a localized network.”
Even if it didn’t have devious intentions, AI could still kill people, even inadvertently.
“I worry about AI having no common sense,” said Gary Rivlin, creator of “AI Valley” told The Post. “Then it somehow, stupidly, drains off all the water because it doesn’t understand what a human would understand. These things know everything and they understand nothing.”
Will Smith’s 2004 movie “I, Robot” featured a society where robots serve humanity, until one thing goes incorrect. ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
Stuart Russell says that a Chernobyl scale catastrophe would, unbelievably, be a best case scenario among doable AI outcomes. AP
Bioweapons
Scientists at top universities have already used AI to create artificial viruses, while warning about the technology’s misuse. OpenAI has acknowledged it performs a cat-and-mouse sport to keep forward of and block customers who ask its ChatGPT program how to make poisons and bioweapons.
“In five years,” believes Friedman, “it will be trivial for AI to design new drugs to help us or viruses to kill us all.” In fact, he added, “It’s happening right now.”
An engineered deadly disease which is extremely contagious but undetectable for days after infection could be close to unimaginable to stop. A scenario could see an AI ordering varied uncooked supplies from different unlicensed labs in rogue nations, then hiring or tricking an unwitting human into combining and spreading them, shortly spelling catastrophe, sources described.
Given that we’re deploying AI in medical research and drug development, it has large access to information about our our bodies and their vulnerabilities. Also assume how simply a pathogen can escape a lab — for occasion what might have occurred with COVID-19. Then think about that pathogen supercharged by AI.
Max Tegmark, a physics professor at MIT, believes that apocalyptic eventualities are all too doable if we don’t regulate AI. The Washington Post via Getty Images
“We see AI getting better and better at making bioweapons,” Max Tegmark, an MIT physics professor and AI knowledgeable, told The Post. “Maybe we have one more year left, or something, until they get that good at making bioweapons… It would probably develop not just one bioweapon, but maybe a hundred different kinds and release them at the same time.”
Nuclear capabilities
Hacking into US nuclear infrastructure — such as energy plants or weapons of mass destruction — is another ready-made approach AI could hasten the destruction of humanity.
“Nuclear weapons systems are very well protected, but they’re well protected against the threats and the sort of capabilities people have had for years and decades, not against superhuman AI hacking,” Anthony Aguirre, CEO of Future of Life Institute, warned.
A real-world instance of how susceptible nuclear services might be performed out is evident with the case of Stuxnet, a malicious pc worm uncovered in 2010.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Natanz uranium enrichment services which had been hit by the Stuxnet pc worm, severely damaging its infrastructure. Getty Images
It was the world’s first recognized digital weapon, designed to bodily destroy industrial tools, deployed against Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. It proved a enormous success, destroying almost 1,000 centrifuges by manipulating their operational speeds.
Perhaps most chillingly, the nuclear facility was closed off from the web and operated on a top-secret closed inside pc circuit. No one has ever claimed accountability for developing the virus, though it is suspected of being a joint US and Israeli navy operation.
Meanwhile, Rivlin famous AI brokers taking part in warfare video games have a tendency to “press the nuclear button” — which people don’t do because they know the implications. This was confirmed by King’s College London, which in February used ChatGPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash in a collection of 21 warfare video games.
“95% of games saw tactical nuclear use and 76% reached strategic nuclear threats,” Professor Kenneth Payne, of the Defense Studies Department, famous.
“I think if I were in charge of the US NC3 — [the department for] nuclear weapon security and safety — I’d be terrified,” Aguirre added.
The 1991 film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” depicted humanoid robots rising up and taking over the world. Everett Collection
Anthony Aguirre warned that we’re regularly offloading too many navy capacities to artificial intelligence. Federation of American Scientists/ Wikipedia
Military takeover
The navy is already very AI ahead. The US collects data from radar alerts, satellite tv for pc and drone imagery, digital communications, and other sources then makes use of AI to put it all together into what’s identified as a “common operating picture” of a battlefield, according to Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon’s chief digital and AI officer.
AI technology has already been used to choose targets during the latest Operation Epic Fury, while the Iranian authorities claims its cruise missiles are guided by AI. The Russian authorities has also boasted it makes use of utterly AI guided drones to kill people in Ukraine, with no human involvement.
Tegmark said that’s mainly teeing up a misaligned AI system to annihilate us.
“They’re already building AI-powered robots to kill people in all sorts of ways. We’re building drone swarms to shoot people, [drones] to blow people up,” he said. “There are all kinds of AI systems that are already designed by people to kill people. So, the most obvious thing [a rogue AI] can do is use those.”
Aguirre says people are flirting with “gradual disempowerment” by delegating choices in warfare and national security to AI fashions, because at a sure level the AI could have more control over our navy capabilities than we do.
Jacob Coxon announced his resignation from Anthropic in a post on X on September eighth, citing threats to humanity. Jacob Coxon / X
AI professor David Krueger says that the only approach to save ourselves is pausing AI development. The Inside View / Youtube
Can the tech bros escape?
Mark Zuckerberg has constructed a bunker in Hawaii and Peter Thiel purchased a large distant farm in New Zealand. But the consultants who spoke with The Post unanimously agreed: its “almost childish,” as Russell put it, to assume there can be any saving oneself from nightmare prospects if they unfold.
“If AI wants humans gone, we’re gone. Your bunker’s not gonna save you,” Aguirre said.
How can we get out of this?
If AI continues to develop at its current charge and decides to remove people the “best case” scenario would seemingly be shut down energy grids, transportation networks and financial markets inflicting the death of hundreds before people intervene and stop it – not an apocalypse but “a Chernobyl-scale disaster,” according to Russell.
“The [government] would say, ‘Look, we gave you a chance. You totally blew it. You’ve killed thousands of people, cost us trillions of dollars. We’re shutting you down,’” he explained. “I talked to one of the leading AI CEOs who told me this is his best-case scenario.”
However, this is by no means a foregone conclusion. Techno optimists preserve AI will stay under human control and continue to be a drive for good. But consultants advocated for a common pause in development. Krueger called for an “immediate, indefinite, international moratorium on AI development.”
Critics say if only the US did this, it might enable international adversaries to make all the progress behind our backs, but Kreuger pointed out other nations also don’t need to unleash the end occasions.
He said of China: “They also don’t want to die.”
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