The AI sky is falling! Are the end times upon us?

Editorial by Robert M. Levy

A news reporter was so concerned that artificial intelligence (AI) would lead to human extinction, he asked Elon Musk, “Are We All Going To Die?” Musk replied, “Yes.” However, Elon admitted the date was uncertain and the deaths would more likely be caused by old age rather than (to paraphrase) “a bot gone bonkers.”

Yeah, there are predictions that AI will kill us all, and in a very short order. In 2025, former OpenAI forecaster Daniel Kokotajlo calendared human extinction for April 2027. Still, I am not going to max out my credit cards in anticipation that the Apocalypse will make repayment unnecessary. Between 150,000 and 300,000 years of Homo sapien history suggests a different result. After Kokotajlo’s “drop dead” date, I will likely still be as alive as my bill collectors from Mastercard.

Today we call them “doomers.” A few years ago, we called them “end-timers.” They pop up every few years, mostly when there is political, social or economic turmoil. They used to shout, “The end is nigh!” from the center of the public square, just across the street from the local tavern. They then migrated to the newspapers and then to the television set. Today they’re on the internet. Unfortunately, they will likely be with us forever.

A single person or a small group generally leads the pack. They claim that because of their special expertise, whether it is scientific or religious, they know something the “elites” kept secret. Therefore, they know the precise date and time of our demise.

Over the past 15 to 30 centuries, there have been many such “end-timers.” And obviously, each and every one has been wrong. Still, humanity continues to “fall for it.”

Not too long ago, the “father and daughter” of the “end- times,” Al Gore and Greta Thunberg, predicted human extinction from climate change. It would start with the melting of the polar ice caps by 2016. Rudolph would starve. Santa would be homeless. In 2018, Greta called it part of the “6th mass extinction.” She calendared the final “collapse” for 2023.

In 1967, Stanford Population Biologist Paul Ehrlich scheduled worldwide famine for 1975. Perhaps it was supposed to “tie-in” with the 1960 prediction of Austrian physicist Heinz von Foerster. By November 13, 2026, a few weeks from now, Forester predicted that human extinction would be a mathematical certainty.

Maybe we should all be amazed just to be alive. According to the experts of their time, our parents, our grandparents, and many of our “greater” grandparents before them should have died long before our birth.

According to the 19th and early 20th century “doomer” William Miller, the end of the world was biblically certain on April 18,1844. Jehovah Witness founder Charles Taze Russell differed. He predicted the end date to be1874. And French astronomer Camille Flammarion scientifically proved that the gas emitted from the 1910 visit of Hailey’s Comet would asphyxiate the globe. Because we’re all here, we assume it didn’t happen.

But “doomers” never say, “Sorry” when time proves them wrong; they just “double-down.” For instance, Charles Taze Russel changed his doom date from 1874 to 1881 and then to 1910. When the world survived his last prediction of October 1,1914, he had the good sense to die a few weeks later.

Al Gore is doing the same thing. He first moved his polar glacier melt from 2016 to 2020. Then he moved it to 2030. Now it’s 2050. The 78-year-old Gore is likewise betting he will be buried before he has to explain himself again. It’s his newest “Inconvenient Truth.”

The Apocalypse scam is actually a worldwide problem. In 1989, the United Nations promised that global warming would eradicate certain nations by the year 2000. And…you guessed it…that date was postponed until 2010. Then, the date became 2020. Now it’s 2030. But I wouldn’t bet against a 2050 postponement created to coincide with the similarly delayed projected opening date of the California “High Speed” Rail.

The AI business leaders of today are just the latest of the many false prophets who came before them. In our world, the AI “panickers” are the immediate descendants of disgraced “doomers” like Gore and Thunberg. The CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, first predicted cyber-caused extinction for this very year, 2026. OpenAI CEO San Altman has been screaming the same message in the same electronic public square since 2023. For them, only one thing is certain. Their predictions will not come true. Their machines will not kill-off humanity…mostly because there’s no profit in it.

Yeah, these new “doomers” are a little different. Unlike the “end-timers” before them, the “AI guys” are motivated more by profit than by altruism. Although similarly misguided by their own fanaticism, Al Gore, Greta Thunberg and their end-time predecessors probably thought that their mission was primarily humanitarian. But today’s AI “crazies” anchored their existence with stock options and “initial public offerings” (IPO’s). In other words, their motivation is, in large part, a financial scam.

The AI “doomers” want to create a public monopoly on their product. They want to convince America that only their companies are equipped to control this unique evil. They want to create huge barriers to competition. And most of all, they want to collude together by obtaining a waiver from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. They want to be social media “on steroids,” complete with immunity from civil liability.

Our conclusion should be emphatic. To all the purveyors of doom and gloom: “The world will not end anytime soon. Mastercard will live forever. So, if you do anything bad or make machines that do bad things, you will either get ‘sued down to your cufflinks’ or go to jail…or both.

“Build your business and make all the money you can. But do it the old-fashioned way… compete in the open market, bounded by the same laws that have balanced both innovation and safety so successfully that America has become the most exceptional nation in world history.”

By now, we should be wiser when we consider the prophecies of “end-timers.” America does not need a Department of Artificial Intelligence. It simply needs an honest Justice Department vigorously enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act with the goal of maintaining America’s lead in competition and innovation. These are the keys to American exceptionalism and its resulting economic prosperity.

Robert M. Levy

RobertReports.substack.com

Robert M. Levy grew up in Moore County and graduated from Pinecrest High School. He earned a BA in history and sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his honors thesis on the Wilmington Rebellion of 1898 became part of the university’s library collection.

Admitted to the California State Bar in 1978, Levy practiced law for 40 years in California and Maryland, focusing on family and criminal law, including work with juvenile offenders and abused children. His writing on affirmative action appeared in the San Fernando Valley Law Review, and he authored Divorce: A Cynical Experience. He later earned a North Carolina teaching certificate from UNC Charlotte and taught high school social studies across Moore County.

Levy has served as chairman of the Moore County School Board, president of the North Carolina Electoral College, chairman of the Moore County Republican Party, and a columnist for The Pilot in Southern Pines. He lives in Pinehurst with his wife, Linda, and they have three children and four grandchildren.

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