# AI existential risk debate

This Nature explainer traces the September 2026 AI-extinction debate triggered by Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's resignation, in which Coxon said "the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade," Evan Hubinger estimated the risk of human extinction at ">10% within the next decade," and Dario Amodei then posted an essay calling for a slowdown rather than a halt in AI development; it also cites RAND's Michael Vermeer, whose assessment of nuclear weapons, biotechnology and deliberate atmospheric modification found complete extinction by nuclear weapons infeasible while the other two scenarios could not be ruled out, though carrying them out would require models to have considerable ability to physically interact with the world and would almost

This Nature explainer traces the September 2026 AI-extinction debate triggered by Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's resignation, in which Coxon said "the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade," Evan Hubinger estimated the risk of human extinction at ">10% within the next decade," and Dario Amodei then posted an essay calling for a slowdown rather than a halt in AI development; it also cites RAND's Michael Vermeer, whose assessment of nuclear weapons, biotechnology and deliberate atmospheric modification found complete extinction by nuclear weapons infeasible while the other two scenarios could not be ruled out, though carrying them out would require models to have considerable ability to physically interact with the world and would almost