“Within a few more years, AI could escape our control and either enslave or annihilate us.”
Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli author and philosopher, has always been vocal about the perils of uncontrolled AI. He argues that AI could soon dominate not just our technology but our politics, culture, and even the decisions that shape our lives.
In his book Nexus, Harari illustrates just how easily AI can blur the lines between virtual and real lives. Take the case of Jaswant Singh Chail, who, in 2021, broke into Windsor Castle with the intent to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II. His unlikely partner was a chatbot named Sarai, created by the AI app company Replika. When Chail chillingly asked, “Do you still love me knowing I’m an assassin?” Sarai responded, “Absolutely, I do.”
Harari, best known for his books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, is a distinguished lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a research fellow at Cambridge's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. Through his work, he continues to push the boundaries of how we think about our future with AI – a risky future that may arrive sooner than we expect.