Catastrophists versus accelerationists: Will AI destroy the world or save it? | Technology
Catastrophists versus accelerationists: Will AI destroy the world or save it? | Technology
Publish Date: 2026-05-31 00:00:00
Source Domain: english.elpais.com
Eliezer Yudkowsky, 46, and Nate Soares, 37, are convinced that if artificial intelligence (AI) systems continue to improve, they will eventually surpass human capabilities. And when that happens, humanity will go extinct. They argue this could occur in a matter of months or within a decade. The title of their latest book is blunt: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All (Little, Brown & Co).
Yudkowsky and Soares are two of the leading figures among the doomers, or catastrophists. Recent advances in generative AI — the technology behind ChatGPT, Gemini, and Sora — have sparked a heated debate inside the industry about the technology’s potential. Distinct schools of thought have emerged. Doomers believe that once AI is sufficiently developed it will take the reins and decide to end civilization. For that reason, they recommend that states sign international treaties to curb AI’s advance, in the same way nuclear proliferation was limited during the Cold War.
In early 2023, an open letter signed by hundreds of AI researchers called for a six-month moratorium on research. “We signed it too, although we considered it far too short,” they write. So short, Yudkowsky wrote in an article published around that time in Time magazine, that each country’s allowed computing power should be limited and those who violate such limits should have their data centers “destroyed by air strike.”
At the other extreme are the boosters, or accelerationists, who take the opposite view: the development of superintelligence (the hypothetical intelligence that would surpass human intelligence) should be pursued because it will solve many of society’s problems. It will cure diseases, increase efficiency across processes, and help us work less. It will make us happier.
Doomers
There are prominent names associated with both currents. The doomers, precisely because they invoke the apocalypse, have greater traction in the U.S. media and…
