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19/09/2026
Investigating a week of dire AI warnings
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| Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief |
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Before last week, the name Jacob Coxon was probably not one any of us would have known. But as he announced his resignation from his role as a researcher for AI giant Anthropic and published a warning that AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade” kicked off a global conversation about the scale of the potential threat of out-of-control artificial superintelligence.
Soon after, Anthropic released a report detailing recent misuses of its powerful AI models, including designing missiles and bombs, creating deadly pathogens and surveilling dissidents. And CEO Dario Amodei, rather than dismissing Coxon as yet another disgruntled ex-employee, announced that he largely agreed with him, calling for a new regime of monitoring, coordination and even regulation. What followed was a rare show of unity and contrition from big tech bosses.
For the TechScape newsletter, Blake Montgomery wondered why Coxon’s warning has cut through, while Nick Robins-Early, David Smith, and Chris Stein reported on Donald Trump’s dismissive reaction, which provoked a backlash from both Republicans and Democrats. David also reported on the unlikely pairing of Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon, who shared a stage to argue for more protections. Nick asked experts how likely it is that AI CEOs will follow through on pledges to slow the pace. And, among the many fascinating opinion pieces we published, make sure you read the one by Alex Turner, a former Google DeepMind staffer who said we really should be listening to the warnings, and the one by Stuart Russell, one of the leading AI experts in the world, on why Amodei’s call for “pacing the frontier” is not enough.
That we’re at this point is as bizarre as it is scary, especially as we’re still working out the impact of the AI models we’re already using in day-to-day life. That’s been a constant theme of our journalism recently. I’d urge everyone reading this to listen to series two of our brilliant podcast series Black Box, presented by Michael Safi and executive produced by Joshua Kelly. In Black Box: the Chatbots, Michael meets ordinary people who have become convinced they have made scientific breakthroughs, cured diseases or invented new technologies using AI chatbots, symptoms of what’s now known as “AI psychosis”.
This excerpt of Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s brilliant new book End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World is a must-read, too, examining the motives of the infinitely rich men behind some of this technology and their alliance with the far right. The piece is a call for action to urgently defend what we love – the planet and fellow humans. Naomi was also interviewed by Zoe Williams and, with Astra, joined Carter Sherman on our US podcast Stateside to discuss why the convergence of recent climate, far-right and tech crises are creating an atmosphere of apocalypse, and how “hereness” is our way through the doom. I love the idea of “hereness”, particularly in the context of the Guardian’s mission to report on “many somewheres”.
As another antidote to the dire warnings, Nick Evershed wrote a somewhat comforting column urging us not to accept AI domination as inevitable and reminding us that we have the power to change things for the better, as we have done before. And Lois Beckett compiled the definitive list of books to make sense of it all. We could also always talk to each other.
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My picks |
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Xan Brooks interviewed the directors of NAZA, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, after the premiere of their film in Venice last week. The documentary, which is produced by the Guardian, uses the testimony of 24 anonymised military and intelligence insiders to detail the secret systems employed in the war on Gaza that have led to the mass killing of Palestinian civilians. Despite the film having been watched by only a small number of people so far, the film-makers are facing an intense and disturbing backlash in Israel, with senior government figures up to and including Benjamin Netanyahu calling for them to be stripped of their citizenship.
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Our exclusive series, Enslaving nation, revealed the enormous scale of Britain’s centuries-long trafficking of enslaved Africans. Based on new research, our reporting showed the depth of involvement from the British monarchy, to parliament; the role of the church in legitimising it; and how the investors’ wealth was woven deep into the country’s fabric and used to fund hospitals and welfare organisations.
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This week, the environment desk launched a new year-long series, Our rivers, which, as Bibi van der Zee explained in our Down to Earth newsletter, will focus on the environmental challenges facing the world’s rivers. It kicked off with a UN report warning that rivers across the world experienced one of their driest years in more than three decades in 2025. And we visited an inspiring Argentine neighbourhood trying to save the contaminated Reconquista River.
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Also this week, Guardian Australia launched The Populist, a podcast series about the rise (again) of Pauline Hanson and her rightwing One Nation party. As the party enjoyed an astronomical rise in the polls over the past nine months, Sarah Martin and Joe Koning have been digging into how the party operates, who’s behind it and its links to Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart. We revealed that the party had changed its gas reservation policy under Rinehart’s influence and that Hanson’s daughter Lee is working for a NSW senator in Tasmania without the required ministerial approval. There will be three more episodes in the coming weeks.
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Sweden’s far right is down, but not yet out, after last weekend’s narrow win by the center-left bloc. Political scientist Cas Mudde wrote that parties on the centre-left must seize the moment with a bold, progressive agenda. I also enjoyed Carolin Würfel’s piece about why east Germans voted for the AfD.
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Yu-chen Li watched a new TV drama taking China by storm, which depicts Beijing’s state security officers as heroes defending their country against infiltration from Taiwan. The Long Watch is co-produced by the Ministry of State Security and has proved a blockbuster, one that allows the Chinese Communist party to “create their own historical narrative”, said one historian, as cross-strait tensions continue to rise.
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Sam Levin revealed that the FBI has sent an internal memo to law enforcement across the US warning that women have posed as “tradwives” in online dating profiles in an attempt to lure and expose ICE agents, according to a document shared with the Guardian.
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In sport, England rugby star Ellie Kildunne told Sarah Rendell about her ADHD diagnosis and life as a world champion. And Jonathan Liew examined the bleak story of recent Premier League superstar Raheem Sterling, who this week pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and is without a club.
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In this week’s instalment of our series How we survive, Rose George told the powerful and gripping story of Chirag Bahri, who was held captive by pirates for eight months and now works to help hostages and their families.
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I also enjoyed Kim Willsher on the fightback of the French bistro, and Anita Chaudhuri’s fun and very helpful guide to how to deal with conversation-hoggers of all kinds, from monologuists to trauma dumpers.
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Finally, amid the warnings of AI apocalypse, we witnessed what happens when it attempts to replace the most human of endeavours, art, in AI-made sitcom No Big Deal. In his 0-star review Stuart Heritage wrote: “If this is the future of entertainment then I’d rather die than write about it. If we really do only have a decade left, every second should be precious. Please don’t spend any of it watching crap like this.”
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