If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

304 pages

English language

Published Sept. 18, 2025 by Bodley Head.

ISBN:: 978-1-84792-892-4

(1 review)

The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction—but it’s not too late to change course, as two of the field’s earliest researchers explain in this clarion call for humanity.

"May prove to be the most important book of our time.”—Tim Urban, Wait But Why

In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushing to build machines that will be smarter than any person. And the world is devastatingly unprepared for what would come next.

For decades, two signatories of that letter—Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares—have studied how smarter-than-human intelligences will think, behave, and pursue their objectives. Their research says that sufficiently smart AIs will develop goals of their own that put them in conflict with us—and that if it …

The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction—but it’s not too late to change course, as two of the field’s earliest researchers explain in this clarion call for humanity.

"May prove to be the most important book of our time.”—Tim Urban, Wait But Why

In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushing to build machines that will be smarter than any person. And the world is devastatingly unprepared for what would come next.

For decades, two signatories of that letter—Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares—have studied how smarter-than-human intelligences will think, behave, and pursue their objectives. Their research says that sufficiently smart AIs will develop goals of their own that put them in conflict with us—and that if it comes to conflict, an artificial superintelligence would crush us. The contest wouldn’t even be close.

How could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Why would it want to? Would it want anything at all? In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares walk through the theory and the evidence, present one possible extinction scenario, and explain what it would take for humanity to survive.

The world is racing to build something truly new under the sun. And if anyone builds it, everyone dies.

4 editions

DirkReading reviewed If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky

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5 stars

I hold a MSc in Artificial Intelligence and work with software developers in a company that arguably leads the movement towards AGI. I‘m surrounded by techno optimists with awe and deep appreciation for the possibilities but at the same time most people I know in the industry and beyond are worried. That includes me. When I got this book I almost expected the title to be hyperbole to catch attention but you would be mistaken to assume that. Instead Eliezer and Nate lay out in easy to follow language their arguments why the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence will very likely equate a massive and deadly disaster. Now, if you feel intuitively like dismissing this thought as „doomerism“ - please make a point of reading and then showing where the arguments don‘t hold. I follow the space for years now and Ireally would like to read a convincing case why …

I hold a MSc in Artificial Intelligence and work with software developers in a company that arguably leads the movement towards AGI. I‘m surrounded by techno optimists with awe and deep appreciation for the possibilities but at the same time most people I know in the industry and beyond are worried. That includes me. When I got this book I almost expected the title to be hyperbole to catch attention but you would be mistaken to assume that. Instead Eliezer and Nate lay out in easy to follow language their arguments why the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence will very likely equate a massive and deadly disaster. Now, if you feel intuitively like dismissing this thought as „doomerism“ - please make a point of reading and then showing where the arguments don‘t hold. I follow the space for years now and Ireally would like to read a convincing case why they are wrong.