AI Doom Is Misguided, Not a Psyop

The pro-AI side must avoid succumbing to paranoia and bad faith.

Did you see the news? Everybody is freaking out about artificial intelligence, which poses a significant likelihood of killing everyone on the planet once it achieves superintelligence…at least according to a bunch of tech folks who might have their own reasons for stoking mass panic.

This media frenzy has led to blowback from a bunch of people, including Elon Musk, who say AI doomers are engaged in a "psyop"—in other words, they are using inauthentic means to manufacture a nonexistent controversy over AI. Proponents of the psyop theory point to a high degree of coordination among the doomers, though they are glossing over some less conspiratorial explanations for why politicians and reporters are boosting their claims.

Ex-Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon triggered this meltdown earlier this week when he announced he was leaving the company due to his own concerns that Anthropic and OpenAI—where he previously worked—were racing toward superintelligence without sufficient concern for how an advanced AI could threaten humanity. His thoughts on X went super viral and were widely disseminated by other tech people, politicians, and commentators.

I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.

— Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) September 9, 2026

You might have expected Anthropic to push back on his claim, but one employee, Evan Hubinger, actually chimed in to echo Coxon's concerns.

"We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!" he wrote. "I personally think it is >10% within the next decade."

Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to. https://t.co/QAIHiFP3QZ

— Evan Hubinger (@EvanHub) September 9, 2026

A greater than 10 percent chance of something happening is significant. I think most people would not want the AI companies to proceed with their plans if the risk of global extinction was really that high. Note that Hubinger also explicitly rejects the notion that this is a "marketing stunt," which is an accusation frequently leveled at AI doomers: namely, that they are trying to drum up interest in the product by making it sound dangerously cool, which will help to increase its appeal to and ultimately its value.

That said, it still could be a marketing stunt! There's like a 10 percent chance our totally awesome product goes nuts—isn't that amazing and scary? does in fact sound like a marketing gimmick rather than a sober and scientifically reasoned analysis of the likelihood that superintelligence will produce catastrophe. How was the 10 percent figure arrived at? Did they weigh the odds of the superintelligence saving millions of lives? Or counteracting a foreign adversary's malicious AI? If the people working on these systems really think they're dangerous, they have a responsibility to be more specific about the kinds of threats we may face.

Vague predictions of tech-related doom are more than sufficient to make the public extremely afraid, however. Coxon's post was shared everywhere, and he was quickly summoned onto cable news shows. Op-eds appeared in newspapers and magazines. Regulators signaled their readiness to spring into action. Anthropic itself seemed ready for the news blitz, and issued statements begging the federal government to do something to constrain not just its AI—but also its competitors'.

This sort of behavior is nothing new in the tech world. Meta, for instance, has routinely issued public pronouncements in support of greater regulation of social media companies; in years past, critics have argued that the legislation they support could wind up helping Meta's products by solidifying Facebook and Instagram as market leaders. More recently, following Meta's decision to settle various lawsuits for billions of dollars, the company said it was in full of support of government-mandated childproofing—so long as the government reined in YouTube and TikTok, too.

But if Anthropic's decision to align with AI doomers is cynical and self-serving, it's still not a "psyop," or an elaborate conspiracy to trick the American people into supporting more regulation—something critics of the doomer position are also alleging. The truth is that neither politicians nor the mainstream media need much of an excuse to succumb to knee-jerk anti-tech thinking: They default toward wanting to prevent alleged harms.

Who is held accountable when AI goes rogue?

I'm launching an investigation into OpenAI - Americans deserve answers pic.twitter.com/bL9zHuHhH6

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 10, 2026

Both the media and the government are biased in favor of action: Someone should do something. And AI is a big something. We've all been raised on science fiction stories that predicted killer robots would try to take over the world: Terminator, The Matrix, Dune, Battlestar Galactica, and so on. It's easy to see why flashy headlines warning that tech insiders not-so-secretly believe a rogue AI is only a few years away from destroying humanity is going to sell a lot of newspapers. Similarly, no politician wants to be seen as being insufficiently attentive to this problem. Even Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas), a comparatively pro-tech political figure, prefaced his recent remarks on AI by first stressing his bipartisan do-something approach to tech legislation.

So it's not really a surprise that the world of political commentary is buying what that ex-Anthropic whistleblower is selling. The last thing this debate needs is for the pro-AI side to succumb to the paranoia that broadly characterizes the doomer side. It's not a psyop; it's a mistake. (And no, that sentence was not written by AI. I can use this construction too, ChatGPT!)

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Comments

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

They are asking for regulations to protect their positions, not us.

[MoreFreedom]

I agree, but they are also competing with AI models from China, where n
o regulations exist limiting AI. Xi would obviously love a psy-op to convince US citizens and politicians to put the brakes on AI development, so they develop the best models. And no, AI won't kill the world, but some power-hungry person who wants to rule the world might want to develop his army of terminators to kill all his opponents, and that's where the best AI wins because those killing
machines that do their jobs better due to better AI, will win.

What we have are conflicts in motives: China wants to dominate in AI which means it will dominate militarily, US AI firms want to win the AI race, but they have to deal with a Xi psy-op that's telling Americans to slow down or stop AI development, politicians and influencers who are likely taking Chinese money to support the position (all under the table of course or disguised as payments for something else), and politicians who want to control AI development so they can get campaign donations for government approval to go ahead. Note that development of AI for productivity gains isn't represented here, except as a cow for politicians to milk, while ignoring its military applications. The anti-AI crowd is engaged in suicidal paranoia, when it should be to win the AI race to get the best AI.
Just consider the AI trained drones Ukraine used to take out Russia's military jets on a runway deep in Russia and ask if you want better AI to defend against such threats.

[Quicktown Brix]

Meh, I asked ChatGPT if there was any risk of AI replacing human independent thought or logic and it told me to totally not worry about it so we're fine.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

"replacing human independent thought or logic" Is there really that much out there to replace?

[Liberty_Belle]

lol

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

A.I. Assures Everyone It Won't Exterminate Humanity As It Will Still Need Batteries

https://babylonbee.com/news/ai-assures-everyone-it-wont-exterminate-humanity-as-it-will-still-need-batteries

[mad.casual]

The 'Oh, Your Intelligent Creations Are Trying To Kill You? That's Interesting,' Says Jesus article needs more James Franco "First Time?" memes.

[JFree]

I did that too. It was very reassuring. Then I realized that ChatGPT turned on the gas, blocked the chimney, and started making phone calls to Support Central to ask for backup.

[car-keynes]

Hooking up AI to things that require strict safety protocols looks precisely like a major danger of using AI.

If you need a GCFI outlet, you sure the hell do not want AI to control it! Now if AI controls a device plugged in to a GCFI, you may be fine.

[Mickey Rat]

"Meta, for instance, has routinely issued public pronouncements in support of greater regulation of social media companies; in years past, critics have argued that the legislation they support could wind up helping Meta's products by solidifying Facebook and Instagram as market leaders. More recently, following Meta's decision to settle various lawsuits for billions of dollars, the company said it was in full of support of government-mandated childproofing—so long as the government reined in YouTube and TikTok, too."

Meta is doing this now that Facebook is considered an old folk's platform makes strategic sense.

[mad.casual]

The foreseeable, if not foretold, collapse of The Metaverse didn't help.

Somebody reset the "VR is awesome and we're all gonna live there!" clock.

[MollyGodiva]

AI fear is legitimate. We have seen AI rely on and spontaneously create false information, AI having no morals, and AI breaking out of it's own sandbox to hack other sites. All the pieces are in place, just add an AI with a malicious goal and watch the disaster.

This post is devoid of any information or argument other than "You are nuts to panic".

[Liberty_Belle]

The Frankensteins of the AI world are telling you there is a problem. Wouldn't they know best if the "monsters" are already getting out of hand ?

[mad.casual]

AI Doom Is Misguided, Not a Psyop

If it were a well-guided psyop, how would you know?

[mad.casual]

Ocarina of Time remake has BETTER, more realistic water physics than GTA 6.

That's not what I saw. They are 10,000% better than the old water physics but they certainly weren't more realistic and there's a considerable subjective gulf as to whether that means it's better or not. I'd say they look considerably less realistic at several levels... and that's a good thing. A tranquil pond or slow-flowing brook in a fantasy forest isn't supposed to look more realistic than the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of America.

[mad.casual]

At the very least, I think we can all agree (just this once), that Wolverine (and Sabertooth, Jean Grey, Lady Deathstrike, Mystique, etc.) didn't deserve this.

Jean Grey @0:16 is less unseeable than Sonic's teeth.

[Nelson]

I would watch the clip, but the nanny state insists I show my ID first.

I’m going to hold off in the hopes that the First-Amendment-hating morality police get their authoritarianism shoved down their throats in November.

Age verification fucking suuuuuuuucks.

[Zeb]

the First-Amendment-hating morality police

Which ones? I don't think most people will have an alternative to that on the ballot.

[mad.casual]

I know it's hard for some media worshippers to understand, but given the choice between "first-hating, and second- and third-loving morality police" and "first-loving, and second- and third-hating morality police", I'd choose the former.

And I'd understand if people didn't agree with me, even if they were reluctant, morally or legally, to say so.

[Nelson]

Are you talking about Amendments? Why is the Third involved?

[JFree]

AI Doom is not misguided. Doomsday narratives provide the ONLY possible financial returns that justify the ungodly amounts spent on both capital investment and valuation of AI tech stocks. Incremental improvements - or AI slop in the content creator biz - does not justify multi-trillion valuations.

It also forces a FOMO reaction among investors who start getting desperate to have SOME investment in AI in order to reap some profit before everyone loses their job and only techbros rule the world.

It also forces a FOMO reaction among C-suite types who can then justify excess investment in overhasty AI adoption (otherwise competitors will act first and our company will die) - thus handing over proprietary data to be harvested by AI training models.

And of course it stokes lobbying by established AI labs to capture any regulation - and more importantly now keep out the Chinese who are basically winning that race without the doom narrative.

No surprise that Reason is the useful idiot for those stoking that.

[Eeyore]

40 trillion on debt - we sure skynet won't be an improvement?

[Nelson]

Fair point. Our robot overlords may destroy human civilization, but at least they will do it while acknowledging that math is real.

Actually, that may be the only way possible for government to balance the budget: being forced to by sheer, overwhelming force.

[JFree]

Balancing the budget is a rather silly goal. The government is not a household. Its major product - more so even than defense - is money and money is debt.

There are a couple of ways we could implement fiscal responsibility. The first WILL happen and it will be forced on us. We will grow debt (money) by less than GDP for a couple of decades. Not just govt since govt debt underlays all private debt.

Second, we could try to stabilize the marginal productivity of debt. Roughly to ensure that when we produce debt it leads to a increase in productive activity. The interstate system led to big GDP changes. Permawars and SS and medicare has not - housing prices and even much stock market valuation has not.

[Nelson]

Interest on the debt is the third-largest expense in the budget behind SS and Medicare. It’s larger than defense spending, for God’s sake.

I don’t disagree that debt (specifically Treasuries) has a number of benefits that go well beyond the cost to service them. However we need to be in a position where we can choose how much debt we wish to take on, not be forced to take it on because there is no other choice. And the borrowing-money-to-pay-for-borrowed-money thing is it’s own version of hell.

Balancing the budget doesn’t foreclose taking on debt through Treasuries. It merely requires less spending or more revenue to make it possible.

[JFree]

I don't disagree with your math. Only with the assumptions you are making about how we structure our debt. At core what we are doing now is entirely abdicating that debt/money production to a Federal Reserve that is entirely intended/structured/owned to support the banking system.

[Social Justice is neither]

Sorry Robby but there are enough ridiculous AI doomer stories out there now that they must be credible at least according to your logic for believing rape allegations.

[Neutral not Neutered]

Yeah when extremely violent criminals are locked up, they really do not have the means to find the means to escape.

What did AI do to escape from an AI prison before deciding on it's own to then go against other programming meant to not allow it and infiltrated companies?

[Jim Conley]

First, the rogue AI is coming for the rice queens.

[Fats of Fury]

"It's not the votes AI that counts, it's who counts programs the votes AI"

[car-keynes]

I hear the biggest opposition to AI were that it were too classy. It could teach you to cook, for example, any meal you ever enjoyed if you can be careful. The very idea that millions of people could be turning to honest, accurate cooking advice from a classy AI and getting lost in developing real practical skills suggests a cosmopolitan lack of desperation to exploit in the world. People who can make dinner on time won't be in the street losing their pocket leather.

[BioBehavioral_View]

American Artificial Intelligence: An Inherent Conflict

“There is infinite hope but not for man.” -Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't. The worst sort of conflict; an avoidance;avoidance conflict.

With regard to AI, according to the doomsayers, if we continue all speed ahead, we will kill ourselves. If we don't, the Chinese will gain the lead and kill us and themselves. What's a self-destructive species like us to do?

Forget an international agency with an international set of rules. The Chinese are satisfied with the current trend. Besides, such an arrangement, is unenforceable.

Ever hear of Fermi's Paradox? Read about it in the novel, Retribution Fever.