The Coming AI Intelligence Explosion And Why You Are The Problem

“Jack Clark, a cofounder of top AI company Anthropic, recently predicted that there’s a 60% chance of an AI fully training its successor by the end of 2028, warning that techniques to try to ensure AIs are safe today may break under recursive self-improvement. Initiating such a process, known as an intelligence explosion, could quickly result in uncontrollable superintelligence — AIs vastly smarter than humans. In recent months and years, top AI scientists, leaders, and CEOs have been warning that the development of superintelligent AI could lead to human extinction.”

In the intelligence business, this is what we call “bad”.

But, never mind, nothing to see here. You definitely should not express concern about this possibility, or someone from the government might come speak with you.

Let me explain.

First of all, let’s talk about this whole “intelligence explosion” thing. Here’s the gist. Up until now, we have dealt with computers and programs that we program. Periodically, somebody announces they have created a new, more advanced “thing”, and we debate its pros and cons, but we assume that we are the ones doing the creating. We are the ones making the decisions. We are in control.

We are fast approaching the day when, for AI, that will no longer be true in any relevant sense. AI will have the capacity to evolve, “advance” and morph into something completely new. It will do so, of course, at the speed of light. This will not be gradual. This may well be effectively instantaneous. By the time you even know it has happened, it is too late. You are living, or perhaps not living, with the consequences.

Yes, if you ever watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day, you will now be hearing in your head echoes of this line. “Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.”

“This brings us to the central feature of AI risk: Unless an AI is specifically programmed to preserve what humans value, it may destroy those valued structures. As Yudkowsky puts it, ‘the AI does not love you, nor does it hate you, but you are made of atoms it can use for something else.’”

Intelligence Explosion: Evidence and Import

The economic impacts of the rush to expand AI are already upon us. Estimates are that AI is taking 16,000 jobs net away from humans every month. Nobody has any clear idea of what those people are now supposed to do for work. Now, on top of what may prove to be economic devastation, we are talking about rolling the dice and hoping AI doesn’t just decide to erase humanity and start with a clean slate.

And the government’s reaction to all this is to trot out the usual Deep State playbook and begin to label and categorize anyone protesting and asking questions. To that end, we now have a new acronym, AGAAVE,anti-government, anti-authority, violent extremist. Yes, that is now a thing.

A recent Wired magazine expose did an admirable job of shining a light on a whole series of governmental entities, at the federal, state, and local levels, that are now highly concerned about dangerous nutjobs who are trying to hold up this whole AI goldrush and raising concerns about its implications.

“Among the documents in the tranche obtained by Wired Magazine is a New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau report that warns of widespread upheaval in response to AI adoption. Of particular note is a novel term for what the bureau purports to be an emerging extremism threat.”

‘The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent AI technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City,’ the report reads. The term ‘anti-tech violent extremism’ does not appear in any publicly available DHS or FBI domestic extremism reports or guides and represents a novel grouping of a wide range of ideologies under a single extremist category.”

No word on whether these anti-tech people also include some of those “crazy” people who raised concerns about electoral integrity or resisted taking experimental vaccines to combat a disease that was essentially a bad flu, or thought we should not be throwing Joe Biden’s political opponents in prison and spying on sitting members of Congress.

Lest you think that the government has confined itself to simply writing reports and creating new categories of “extremist,” the Wired report makes clear that agencies at multiple levels are already targeting anti-AI and anti-data center groups operationally and monitoring their activities.

“The documents obtained by WIRED also show that fusion centers are currently keeping tabs on in-person assemblies. The Northern Virginia center generated a report about demonstrations at local civic events, including the Arlington County budget meeting and the Fairfax County School Board meeting. Across the country, town halls and budget committee meetings have been among the chief forums for local residents to express their dissent with data centers being built in their neighborhoods.”

“But perhaps the clearest-cut example of how nonviolent critiques of technology can be swept up along with threats is found in an open-source report circulated by SITE Intelligence in April 2025. The report flags a video from the progressive nonprofit More Perfect Union on the destructive effects of a data center to nearby residents in Georgia. Nothing in the video advocated for violence against property or people. But thanks to fusion center targeting, the advocacy group is now circulating among US intelligence and law enforcement across the country as a potential threat vector.”

We are driving toward a cliff at full throttle. We have uncorked a bottle and released a genie that we do not fully understand and which we may well not be able to control. Experts in the field of AI are talking openly about the distinct possibility that this thing we have created may simply decide one day in the blink of an eye to utilize our atoms differently. It may simply erase us and start over.

But if you are raising concerns about that, you are the problem.