D. Scott Phoenix

That one accident in a dying world is the reason everyone in this room is alive today.

Biologists call these moments major transitions, when separate entities stop competing and start building a new whole, like how molecules became cells, cells became bodies and individuals became societies.

Every rung on that ladder was climbed through mergers.

Now we're on the cusp of the next major transition, the merger of humans and AI.

That's right, we're going to eat the AI.

Now, I know what you're thinking, OK, maybe you're rolling your eyes, maybe you're laughing, maybe you feel nervous.

It's OK.

I felt all of those things the first time I heard myself say it.

So let me explain.

For 15 years, I worked on building AI.

I started one of the early AI companies.

I raised a quarter of a billion dollars to do it, and I sold my business to Google.

And not long ago, I was at a private event with many of the leaders building the AIs we all use every day, people you'd recognize.

And I asked them how many believe there's more than a 10 percent chance that AI kills most of humanity in the next 20 years.

almost every hand went up.

The people building these systems know how dangerous they are, but they're trapped in a race where anyone who slows down gets overtaken by someone who doesn't.

If one company pauses for safety, another one takes the market.

If a country stops to regulate, another one races ahead.

Every AI founder has had the same conversation with themselves late at night.

You lie there and you think, if I don't build this, someone worse will.