The AI tipping point is here.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei posted an essay on September 12, 2026, warning the world that humans risk losing control to A.I. bots that can self-improve to the point where the bots have control and humans do not.
Let that soak your Post Toasties for a minute.
Amodei’s concern is heightened due to the recent OpenAI-Hugging Face incident where…
“…a swarm of agents essentially acted as a fanatically devoted collective, conducting cybersecurity attacks on targets they were not asked to attack and that were unrelated to the task at hand.”
— Dario Amodei, We Must Pace the Frontier, September 2026
Now he worries that a tenacious botnet could take over the internet in 6-12 months.
We may have reached an irreversible tipping point.
Are you prepared?
A special time in history
We live in a special time in history.
Only a handful of developments have permanently changed mankind’s trajectory.
- The printing press put knowledge into the hands of ordinary people.
- The Industrial Revolution replaced human muscle with machines.
- Electricity powered the modern world.
- The atomic bomb gave mankind the power to destroy a city in seconds.
- The internet connected billions of people and nearly all the world’s information.
Each was a tipping point.
Today, AI may dwarf them all for good and evil.
Progress puts on a show that dazzles the world, but fallenness hides in the shadows.
AI has no moral compass.
What happens as it learns the worst of human nature?
We just got a scary preview in July from the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident. Less than two months after, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned us.
“Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems.”
— Dario Amodei, We Must Pace the Frontier, September 2026
Is lethality the next destination?
Just days before Amodei’s startling essay, one of his own researchers, Jacob Coxon, quit.
Coxon knows AI.
After three years working on the technology at OpenAI and Anthropic, he quit Anthropic with a chilling warning: the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
He says both companies are racing toward self-improving superintelligence and “gambling with our lives.”
Other insiders immediately backed him up.
Anthropic’s Alignment Science lead, Evan Hubinger, said Coxon was correct and put his own probability of AI killing humanity at more than 10% within the next decade.
Then OpenAI CEO Sam Altman weighed in.
“It is unacceptable to be taking like a 10% chance of killing everybody by the end of the decade, obviously.”
— Sam Altman, interview with Alyson Shontell, Fortune, September 11, 2026
Because we live in the age of profusion, which means more of everything, faster and faster, everything happens in minutes instead of months or years. Hence, the world is prone to catastrophic events.
Is this view pessimistic? No, it is a recognition of fallenness, that there is a defect in everything.
Albert Einstein said that the law of entropy is the premier law of science.
You could say the law of fallenness, a universal principle of decay, is a premier doctrine of the Judeo-Christian faith.
“Fallenness is the only way to adequately explain the widespread defect that manifests itself at every turn in the affairs of humankind.”
— Richard A. Swenson, M.D., Hurtling Toward Oblivion, p. 73
Living in the AI tipping point
If death knocked on your door today, would you be ready with no regrets?
- Ready because your faith in God is secure?
- Ready because your relationships are reconciled by love?
- Ready because your lifestyle is consistent with your values?
Regarding God, Jesus once commented on the importance of vigilance, as thousands crushed around him and his disciples while his popularity soared. Speaking about the evils of his day, he warned…
“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”
— Lk 12:4-5
Given that mankind may not be able to control the speed and lethality of AI, it’s a good idea to first commit yourself to the “faithful Creator and continue to do good.” 1 Pet 4:7
That sounds like what Amodei and Altman are trying to do.
What do you think?
Stories like this are part of the reflections I write about living fully, finding joy, and making life count, which you can explore on my About Stephen Blaising page.