Could AI really kill us all? Your questions, answered.

On Wednesday, MIT Technology Review hosted a live Roundtables event for subscribers that asked the question everyone’s asking right now: Could AI really kill us all? But attendees had so many more questions than we had time to answer in the 30 minute session. So we asked our senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and AI reporter Grace Huckins to round up some of the best questions attendees submitted and try their best to answer them.

Unfortunately, my journalistic powers of prognostication aren’t powerful enough for me to tell you how. But it certainly could be because of AI. AI-powered drones have already killed people in Ukraine, and AI-driven cyberattacks on hospitals will surely claim victims before long.

Could AI go even farther, and kill all of us? But some people—quirky people, but undeniably knowledgeable about AI—have been warning that this could happen for years. And while I’m not yet stockpiling canned food or trying to get in good with a bunker-owning megabillionaire, I have noticed that the doomers’ predictions about AI capabilities and alignment have, over the past couple of years, proven disconcertingly accurate.

That certainly doesn’t mean that their more dire forecasts will hold true, but it’s enough for me to sit up and take notice. Are you going to die because of AI? I’d say there’s a non-zero chance.

Let’s say you’re unlucky enough to be the victim of a freakish near-future event or accident. Maybe it’s a cyberattack carried out by a swarm of AI agents on critical infrastructure. Sadly, a scenario like that now no longer feels as far-fetched as it once did.

Or maybe a novel AI-designed pathogen cuts through the population. Or the world economy crashes, causing conflicts and famine. Both plausible, but I think less likely.