The ‘Great Ruin’ Scenario

Whom are we supposed to believe when the very person who promises us a “lost paradise” thanks to advances in artificial intelligence returns days later to warn that a “great ruin” will befall humanity within months or years, without batting an eye?
Elon Musk is not alone in doing this. The entire class of technology titans employs a carrot-and-stick strategy, because they alone possess the levers whose ultimate purpose the rest of us struggle to understand.
One day, Musk boasts of a future life free from toil, jobs, and sweat, a life of prosperity and leisure devoted to favorite hobbies. Days later, he calls for slowing down artificial intelligence because it threatens humanity’s future.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic and author of the well-known open letter published just days ago, warned that within a year, or perhaps only half a year, artificial intelligence could come to dominate the entire internet, controlling it and causing losses amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.
The man whose conscience appears to have awakened suddenly had also made rosy promises before warning us that, through the very tools he develops and refines, “we could all die.”
The wave of resignations and the drop of multimillion-dollar salaries at major technology firms does not necessarily mean that all these individuals have suddenly discovered a passion for moral values. Rather, it suggests that the game is growing larger, with increasingly complex dimensions and overlapping interests, making it difficult to discern who truly holds power and the key cards.
In practical terms, what all these newly awakened voices are calling for is a “slowdown” in AI development. Yet the term is vague and elastic, and the mechanism for implementing it is even more obscure. What authority could possibly be granted the power to inspect giant corporations whose influence stretches like an octopus, deciding what they may or may not do? And how could such companies be expected to obey a weak and constrained regulatory body? Even if we assume that suitable regulators could be found, is the political will available?
China is not coordinating with the United States, nor does it have any interest in revealing its innovations. On the contrary, each side is hiding potentially game-changing surprises from the other. US President Donald Trump categorically rejects slowing the race, viewing every Chinese technological breakthrough as a calamity for America.
Amodei himself, despite previously warning of mass extinction, stated: “If we slow down by more than this amount, then (unpaced) CCP(Chinese Communist Party )-associated projects will pull ahead, creating significant national security risk.
There are also legal and geopolitical obstacles. Any meaningful effort to “slow down” AI development would require close coordination between the two giants leading the industry.
For this reason, the open letters and ringing successive resignations can be seen less as genuine alarms and more as the marketing of ethical positions in a world ruled by the dollar and governed by stock-market valuations, leaving little room for philosophy and even less for humanity.
This does not mean that there are no genuinely concerned individuals within technology companies, nor does it dismiss the reality of the looming risks, which are already present and deserve serious consideration. But what truly concerns governments is how a company’s shares move after such statements, whether investors are inclined to increase their stakes, and how those in positions of influence can remain there.
That is why such warnings should not be interpreted at face value. Some view them as calls to keep AI systems closed-source, a position advocated by both Anthropic and OpenAI. Doing so would prevent smaller firms from gaining a foothold in the market and would preserve power in the hands of today’s dominant companies. These firms also argue, unlike Chinese companies, Meta, and Nvidia, that their models must remain protected to prevent terrorists and criminals from exploiting them. This argument is difficult to defend convincingly. A more plausible explanation is that they seek to protect their sales, prevent the emergence of competitors, and maintain their ability to closely monitor their subscribers.
All possibilities remain open behind the alarming warnings issued by the AI industry since 2023, warnings that are invariably softened afterward with reassuring promises.
In a world governed by disorder, where governments care primarily about power and controlling their citizens, where ordinary people are preoccupied with making a living, and where investors seek quick profits, discussions about self-improving AI systems that could at any moment escape human control and cause harm are both logical and plausible.
Yet what is equally clear is that we have entered an era of such deregulation and unchecked power that companies possessing immense wealth, influence, and authority may be capable of doing almost anything without ever being held accountable.