What Would the AI Apocalypse Look Like? We Went Looking for Answers
episodePreviously titled “The 3 Ways AI Could Actually Go Wrong” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 17, 2026
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What is the core debate about AI safety and why does it matter?
Mm-hmm
Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoe Schiffer, Contributing Editor.
I'm Brian Barrett, Executive Editor.
And I'm Leah Feiger, Director of Politics and Science. Today on the show, we're diving into the debate about whether AI is going to kill us all. And instead of just adding to the pile of hot takes that already exist, we're going to walk you through real specific scenarios, to the best of our ability, about how AI would actually do this and why the tech CEOs and politicians cannot seem to agree on the way forward. Okay, guys, so the debate about AI safety has officially escaped containment.
Oh I know. So yeah, see what you did there. Wow.
You see what I did there? That's the thing that's really spread uncontrollably. AI researcher Jacob Coxson resigned from Anthropic and posted on X that quote, the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. Anthropic's EO Dario Amade has called for a slowdown. They call this pacing the frontier. And Sam Altman and Elon Musk have actually signed on a rare moment of agreement. But honestly, with all of this talk about AI wiping out humanity, I have been left with a very basic question, which is: how exactly does this happen? Like what does AI going completely rogue actually look like?
I'm so happy we're doing this. We had like such a great podcast last week with Wired's Will Knight talking about everyone being concerned about this. But I want like a breakdown. I need, I need you to just like take me through every single scenario from bioweapons to nuclear codes to like what are we really talking about here when we're talking about AI deathbots?
We are going to do our very best. I did spend the most time I've ever spent reading Less Wrong over the last two days, trying to figure this out. They love a scenario planning exercise. But just to get everyone up to speed on kind of the latest, there was an event this week hosted by Salesforce where Sam Altman, Dario Amade, and Nvidia's Jensen Huang were all in attendance. And naturally, they had to talk about AI safety. Let's take a look. Listen at what Sam Altman had to say.
I think the world is right to be afraid of this. So we have these two big challenges. We have the potential of a loss of control accident or some other serious thing that could go wrong. Um we have the potential of way too much power concentration and people fear that those developing AI could exert their worldview. And there is a sort of narrow path we have to navigate. With pragmatism. With You know. steadiness with the ability for the the world to like trust that we will make dependable decisions, consistent decisions through this. And I think people are saying, Well, you know, this now seems pretty important. Like let's let's get it right.
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 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.
I don't know. Like I I I I get the marketing argument, but I think we're past that a little bit. I feel like if anything well if anything, uh Sam Altman has been using the quota the existential threat uh as as a reason not to go public yet. He's he's saying, No, this is too dangerous, we have to wait until next year. Uh, is that really why? I don't know. Uh, but there are probably some business reasons too. I get why anthropic and others saying, look, we're building something that's basically as strong as a nuclear weapon felt like marketing. Something that's like, oh, actually I'm quitting because I think that we might I'm building something that will actually destroy the world feels different. I feel like there's a substantive difference.
The quitting part, the quitting part feels different to me, but like this is still Sam Altman. His financial future is on the line here with this. And it's hard, at least it's hard for me to parse that as being a weight.
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