How many times have you heard me say that artificial intelligence scares the sh*t out of me?

Dozens of times, at least.

And while I tried to convince myself that my aversion to AI was simply a byproduct of having been born a generation ahead of the technology explosion of the late 20th century, somewhere in the hidden recesses of my mind a little voice kept telling me that I was correct: that AI was — or had the potential of becoming — inherently evil.

Now it seems that my gut was right. Mrinank Sharma, the former head of Anthropic’s Safeguards Research team, recently departed the company, posting as he left: “The world is in peril.” [Allison Morrow, CNN, February 11, 2026.]

And a researcher for OpenAI — also on his way to the exit — stated that AI technology has “a potential for manipulating users in ways we don’t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.” [Id.]

At Elon Musk’s xAI, two co-founders quit in a 24-hour period this week. xAI has just completed a merger with Musk’s SpaceX, which will make it the world’s most valuable private company. Over the past week, five other xAI staff members have announced their departures.

Researchers have expressed concerns about safety issues, and about top executives focused solely on generating revenue. Others oppose the inclusion of pornographic content.

In late 2022, soon after ChatGPT came on the market, Geoffrey Hinton — known as the “Godfather of AI” — left Google and began preaching about his view of the existential risks posed by AI, including “massive economic upheaval in a world where many will ‘not be able to know what is true anymore.’” [Id.]

That was what immediately struck me when I first heard the term “Artificial Intelligence” years ago: the fearful prospect of not being able to differentiate between fact and fiction . . . between truth and lies . . . between reality and what some unknown person wants you to believe.

And with the controls in the hands of someone like Elon Musk, that fear becomes abject terror.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/13/26