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Start free trial →Intelligent Machines (Audio) · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · October 2026
Jason Hiner had said the AI-extinction framing is overblown and partly marketing. Martineau tells of young people at an alumni event asking whether AI will wipe everyone out, and says the practical risks are more mundane: outages, utilities and communications going down.
…The closest I could see is now here in New York, there's like some ad campaign going on in the subway that is trying to pitch itself as like an eco-friendly AI. But the ads are like so bad that I've never even looked up to figure out how it's lying about that. But I'm sure it's somehow doing that.
…its public-facing communications about this, is you would think it was like 20% or 50% or something. And I think it's so overblown. And I do think there is a degree of it that is marketing. It's like our technology is so powerful that it could create an existence. You speak to the choir here with
Jeff. Yeah, right. He's always talking about that. I mean, I'll give one brief example just because, so last weekend, I went to go visit my old college newsroom for an alumni event. There were some people there from, you know, my year as college newspaper and then a bunch of young people. And once they'd heard I was doing this podcast, someone asked me, they're like, oh, so like, how worried should we all be about AI committing a mass distinction on us? Is that going to happen in like a year or two years? Should I have a bank account or not? And I was like, honestly, I mean, my real take is the danger you need to be worried about is like very, like, it's different and more practical. I think when people hear like things like extinction event or Dario, you know, saying warding of doom coming imminently, they think like Terminator is going to happen or that suddenly it's going to be like the Matrix. It's like, that's not a realistic thing that is going to happen. Like a lot of things that have to change in our life and relationship with technology for any of that to enter the realm of reality in the near term. But the thing that is more realistic that I think people should be concerned about is stuff that we have covered on the show before. Things that like the fact that this technology will enable people to commit like…
Since you're a nihilist, I think you're a lot of fun. It's
not as pithy and fun as doomsday extinction event happening soon.
So, yeah, I go crazy on this topic because I think that it is cult BS, faux philosophies, Tess Greal. The folks who watch the show have heard me mention that enough that it's a drinking game now. And I think that it might have worked to get cult members in and staff in, and it might have worked to…