Both of these threats have the same roots: private entities seeking to cash in. We have the power to stand against them

A summer of extreme heat, entire villages obliterated in Nepal, a super El Niño breaking records, Exxon publicly saying we may reach 3C by 2050 – could it possibly be any worse?

As climate activists and funders, we’ve spent years warning about a self-evident, imminent, avoidable climate calamity. Whether by making award-winning films (Don’t Look Up and Just Look Up) to warn the public, or by funding protest groups across the planet that bravely stand up for a livable future, we’ve been sounding the alarm to wake the public up.

Lately, as climate disasters and AI expansion wreak havoc on communities globally, warnings are arriving from everywhere all at once.

Daniel Kokotajlo, a former AI forecaster for OpenAI, recently testified before the Senate that today’s AI models are now trained to pursue goals no human gave them, and then they hide the fact that they’ve done it. Kokotajlo put the odds of AI companies automating their own work by the end of 2028 at about 50%, and, if that happens, the AI safety community warns the technology could improve faster than humans can monitor it, and eventually become too difficult to shut down.

These speculative warnings have earned alarm from mainstream media, politicians and civil society alike. Some critics suggest the warnings are marketing ploys by the AI industry to set up an arms race, using the false specter of AI apocalypse to capture government funding.

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