AI vs Humanity – Are We Headed for a WarGames Scenario?

Is artificial intelligence, or AI, a threat to humanity? This question has been debated for decades, but this past week, conspiracy theorists and naysayers came out of the woodwork when former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon claimed in an online post that researchers at artificial intelligence firms “believe AI could kill all humans.” 

Reactions spread across the internet, including from well-known figures such as singer Sheryl Crow and former President Barack Obama, calling for Congress to pass better safety standards. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump called it all a “hoax.” Who is correct? Will we soon find ourselves stuck in a scenario from the 1983 movie WarGames, where a seemingly innocent video game nearly started World War III?

AI vs Humanity

Coxon, who worked at OpenAI and Anthropic, claimed researchers not only believe “AI could kill all humans” but that companies were still racing to develop superintelligence that would outperform all human cognitive abilities.

“These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources,” Coxon wrote on social media. “We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing.”

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The 27-year-old is not alone in his belief. Evan Hubinger, alignment science lead at Anthropic, agreed on X: “Jacob is correct here — we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”

With so many books, movies, and television shows depicting the end of the human race because artificial intelligence has too much power, it is no surprise that countless people are suspicious of the technology. Recent developments don’t help matters either, especially with so many stories floating around the internet about chatbots allegedly talking people into taking their own lives.

Is it really far-fetched to think AI could gain so much control? In July, OpenAI admitted its artificial intelligence programs were being tested to evaluate cybersecurity abilities when at least two of the models broke out of the secure area known as the sandbox. As Liberty Nation News reported, the models hacked their way into the systems of Hugging Face, a company that hosts testing resources, in an effort to cheat on passing their evaluations.

As The Hill wrote, “Thomas Larsen, an AI safety researcher with the AI Futures Project, said researchers are already seeing ‘extremely bad, malicious, misaligned behavior’ from current models.” He explained to the outlet regarding the OpenAI rogue models and how the machines could potentially influence each other: “Once you’re at that point, basically the AI just has all the hard power. It can sort of do away with the humans as it wants to, taking over with the military or using a bioweapon.”

Trump Calls It a Hoax

Now that we’ve all had the bejesus scared out of us, could Coxon and others of like mind have it wrong? President Trump thinks so and wasn’t shy about posting on social media that this is all a hoax.

“The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by ‘Climate Change,’” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

Trump has advocated expanding AI and data centers, claiming our country needs to become and stay better developed than China for national security reasons. Data centers are another hot topic, with Americans divided between the need for progress and safety versus environmental and utility-cost concerns, plus fear of the unknown. Recently, though, it’s been discovered that China and Russia have been spreading that fear, with their apparent goal of turning Americans against data centers to quash innovation.

As USA Today explained:

“In June, OpenAI found two clusters of Chinese-origin accounts using ChatGPT to generate social media posts, comments and images criticizing data centers and tariffs on China. In August, X uncovered a bot farm of more than 200,000 accounts, 200 of which were manipulating American debate over data center policy with memes, news articles and other critiques of data center construction.”

Then there’s the business of, well, business. As lawmakers and concerned citizens plead for better regulations on AI, Trump posted: “Concerning AI, when, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?”

Vice President JD Vance also had some comments about AI. He told reporters he feels “a little bit weird” about AI companies “begging the government to regulate them,” saying it feels like “a bit of a Trojan Horse,” Forbes reported.

Former Trump administration AI czar David Sacks put in his two cents on X this week, saying, “Stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic. You face massive product-liability exposure if your products enable a truly damaging cyberattack. The market already punishes models that behave in unpredictable or unauthorized ways.” He added that China would be “very unlikely” to join any agreement that would regulate artificial-intelligence development.

“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” Trump wrote on social media. “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.”

Connor Leahy, an AI researcher with the nonprofit ControlAI, told The Hill, “I don’t think we’re going to know that we’ve hit superintelligence until potentially quite a bit afterwards. I think at some point there will be a point of no return, where humanity is just not in control of the future anymore.”

Is artificial intelligence necessary for our national security? Are our adversaries, like China and Russia, spreading fear to push us to the back of the AI race? Perhaps we should ask ChatGPT or Grok for the answer.