Your AI apocalypse questions, answered
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What sparked the recent AI apocalypse panic and why did it go mainstream?
Welcome to the VergeCast, the flagship podcast that I guarantee will not kill all humans within the next decade. I am one of the producers of the VergeCast, Travis Larchuk, and you have probably seen over the last week or so a lot of people concerned about how dangerous AI may or may not eventually become. What we're gonna do on this show is open up the high Hotline. We put out a call for your questions for this AI Doom hotline. The Verge's senior AI reporter Hayden Field is going to listen to your questions and give her answers. But first, before we get to that. Here are some hopefully less depressing stories that are also happening on The Verge today. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge for Wednesday, September 16th, 2026.
The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max reviews are out today. The Verge's Allison Johnson says: they're good phones. The main camera is a little better, the dynamic island is a little smaller. And that's about it. The new hotness, of course, is the folding iPhone Duo, and that phone launches next month. Next up, bad news for perverts. According to the information, Meta may be about to reveal new smart glasses without cameras. These will reportedly have six microphones, but audio-only AI isn't exactly super popular right now either. Apple got some criticism. Criticism for the new audio only AI features it announced for the next Apple Watches. Those features always listen to whatever you or the people around you are saying.
So we'll see how this goes, or hear how this goes. I don't know. And finally, let's turn to the e Ink device company Books. It's actually pronounced Books, but Books is more fun to say. Yesterday, Books announced the latest version. Of its smartphone-sized e-reader, the Palma 3. This one's got stylus support, Android 16, and an aluminum frame instead of plastic. It's $60 more expensive than the Palma 2, and it has the same black and white display. The Virgis David Pierce called the original Palma his favorite e-reader, so we'll see what he has to say about the Palma 3. You can read more about these stories at theverge.com. That's 90 seconds on the verge for Wednesday, September 16th, 2026.
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I am here with the very in demand senior AI reporter from The Verge, Hayden Field. Hello, Hayden.
Hi, great to be here. Yeah, it's been a crazy two days. It feels like it's been two years in the past two days, but
It has been crazy. We are here to do what I am calling in this Google Doc an AI apocalypse hotline. There has been uh sort of a broken containment freakout that's uh happened over the last week. Um, Hayden, first of all, can you tell me what happened with your text messages from your friends over the weekend?
Yeah, this weekend I got so many texts from everyone in my life. It was like My best friend's childhood neighbor's mom. Um, you know, ever that is like an example of the level to which this went. It really, everyone was worried about the AI apocalypse happening. Um, so much so that, you know, yeah, I had a friend that's like a podcast producer text me, um, be like, what's the deal? No one can no one, everyone's very stressed out. about what these AI researchers are saying publicly.
And what is what is the moment that caused this to happen? What set this off?
Yeah, I was I was surprised that this happened so suddenly in terms of the kind of the breaking containment um and going mainstream because there was a post that went really viral um, you know, in the past week.
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
What sparked the recent AI apocalypse panic and why did it go mainstream?
0:02–11:47
2
How did the Anthropic researcher’s resignation letter raise alarm about AI killing humanity?
11:47–23:13
3
What specific AI safety concerns do researchers cite about recursive self‑improvement (RSI)?
23:13–33:34