There's been a tidal wave of media coverage on the dastardly dangers of AI, some carrying warnings that "we're all gonna die!" – maybe. And what unleashed this flood of frightening stories about super-intelligent AI networks crushing humanity?One social media post by a guy no one's ever heard of. Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, resigned and posted his concerns on X, the tweets triggering such a thunderous reaction across the media landscape that television raced to put him on the air.It was this sentence that cast him as a digital-age Paul Revere: "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade."And here's the irony: the journalists covering and commenting on the surge in artificial intelligence have little idea how serious that threat is.
If the high-tech crowd can’t agree, how are those who cover everything from politics to war supposed to know?ANTHROPIC CEO LIKENS AI FIGHT WITH CHINA TO COLD WAR, SEEKS 'DISARMAMENT NEGOTIATIONS'If Anthropic and OpenAI, which dominate the field, are so upset about AI networks replicating themselves and going rogue, why don’t they hit the brakes on their own?I’m not saying that most media have joined the ranks of the doomsayers, but the sheer volume of coverage has fueled the sense of an impending crisis.Coxon, enjoying his 15 seconds of fame, is also adept at sound bites.In one television appearance he warned that AI could use "hacking," "persuasion" or "bioweapons," calling that "pretty scary stuff… Imagine suddenly a million drones activate all over the world." Scary indeed.Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anthropic, during an interview on "The Circuit with Emily Chang" at Anthropic's headquarters in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, April 30, 2026. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)Anthropic’s Mythos AI uncovered more than 2,000 unknown software vulnerabilities in just seven weeks, showing how fast AI can now expose hidden weaknesses.
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