--- title: "AI Expert: “I Think We’re All Going to Die”" description: "Eliezer Yudkowsky, a controversial AI theorist, continues to believe that humanity is totally out of its depth when it comes to AI." date: "2023-07-14" modified: "2023-07-14" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-expert-were-all-going-to-die" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "eliezer yudkowsky" - "gpt-4" - "OpenAI" - "the digest" --- # AI Expert: “I Think We’re All Going to Die” ![Eliezer Yudkowsky, a controversial AI theorist, continues to believe that humanity is totally out of its depth when it comes to AI.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Good As Dead There's no shortage of AI doomsday scenarios to go around, so here's another AI expert who pretty bluntly forecasts that the technology will spell the death of us all, as [reported by *Bloomberg*](). This time, it's not a so-called [godfather of AI sounding the alarm bell]() — or that [other AI godfather]() (is there a committee that decides these things?) — but a controversial AI theorist and provocateur known as Eliezer Yudkowsky, who has previously [called for bombing machine learning data centers](). So, pretty in character. "I think we're not ready, I think we don't know what we're doing, and I think we're all going to die," Yudkowsky said on an [episode]() of the *Bloomberg* series "AI IRL." ## Completely Clueless Some beliefs of AI-apocalypse are more ridiculous than others, but Yudkowsky, at the very least, has seriously maintained them for decades. And recently, his AI doom-mongering has become more in fashion as the industry has advanced at a breakneck pace, making guilt-stricken Oppenheimers out of the prominent computer scientists who paved the way. To add to the general atmosphere of gloom, these fears — though usually less radically — have been echoed by leaders and experts in the AI industry, many of whom [supported a temporary moratorium]() on advancing the technology past the capabilities of GPT-4, the large language model that powers OpenAI's ChatGPT. In fact, that model is one of Yudkowsky's chief concerns. "The state of affairs is that we approximately have no idea what's going on in GPT-4," Yudkowsky claimed. "We have theories but no ability to actually look at the enormous matrices of fractional numbers being multiplied and added in there, and \[what those\] numbers mean." ## Deflecting the Issue These fears are no doubt worth considering, but as some critics have observed, they tend to distract from AI's more immediate but comparatively mundane consequences, like [mass]() [plagiarism](), [displacement of human workers]()**,** and an enormous [environmental]() [footprint](). "This kind of talk is dangerous because it's become such a dominant part of the discourse," Sasha Luccioni, a researcher at the AI startup Hugging Face, told *Bloomberg*. "Companies who are adding fuel to the fire are using this as a way to duck out of their responsibility," she added. "If we're talking about existential risks we're not looking at accountability." Nobody sums up this kind of behavior better than OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a [self-admitted survivalist prepper]() who hasn't shut up about how he's [afraid]() and [conflicted]() about the AI he's building, and how it could [cause mass human extinction]() or [otherwise destroy the world]() — none of which has stopped his [formerly non-profit company]() from taking billions of dollars from Microsoft, of course. While Yudkowsky is surely guilty of doomsday prophesying, too, his criticisms at least seem well-intentioned. **More on AI:** *[Bill Gates Says AI Could "Undermine Elections and Democracy"]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()