AI doomsday fears return: Its creators are now warning of darker risks. They are terrified of it.

Throughout the past year, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been portrayed as a technological evolution that is rapidly reshaping industries. With advancements, its concerns also remained constant across private Slack channels, in whispered hallway exchanges, and in group chats. However, last week, those conversations went public, and leaders from big AI companies are urging a pushback from rapid AI development.

It all began on September 9, 2026, when a 27-year-old AI researcher who had worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, shared a post on X raising concerns about the unprecedented growth of frontier models, while exiting the AI industry entirely.

“Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” Coxon said. The post has now received over 165 million views, and it has grabbed the attention of many.

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Inside Anthropic, the reaction was immediate, as per the New York Times report, as an internal chat revealed an employee saying, “Jacob took the group chat public,” to watch other replied, “That's a good thing.”

How are AI fear concerns brought to life?

Coxon in the post revealed that researchers at firms like OpenAI and Anthropic "believe AI could kill all humans,” but despite fear, they continue to pace AI advancement. Anthropic's head of alignment scientist Evan Hubinger also acknowledged his claims, saying that “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans.”

This revelation started a domino effect across the industry as several researchers came forward, addressing concerns about existential risks to humanity and urging an AI slowdown. As the concerns became more visible, AI leaders finally decided to take part and make the concerns public.

CEOs break silence on AI fears

Previously, leaders have been very cautious about how they talk about AI risks publicly, but in recent months, they have started to talk more openly or directly about the risks and concerns surrounding AI.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, on September 12, 2026, shared an essay urging an industry-level slowdown on AI. He warned that AI agents could become powerful and widespread very quickly. He believes that within six months to a year, these AI agents could potentially become capable enough to take over or exert significant control across parts of the internet.

In the essay, he proposed stronger safeguards and collaborative efforts between AI companies and the government to build AI models that are aligned with human values.

Must read: AI safety warning: Sam Altman, Elon Musk back Anthropic CEO’s call to slow down frontier AI. Why?

Later, Elon Musk and Sam Altman joined and publicly supported Amodei's claims. "Dario is right," Musk posted on X. Altman agreed too, saying the pace of development has been a "primary topic" of discussion at OpenAI.

Recently, Anthropic also shared a report on how people are missing Claude AI models across several harmful areas such as cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development, and distillation. Furthermore, leaders have also raised concerns over AI’s self-improving capabilities, superintelligence, and even human extinction.

In a recent X post by Altman, he stated two ways in which AI could progress badly. “We could lose control of the future to AI,” he said. “We could end up in a world with too much concentration of power. If an extraordinarily powerful AI is used by one person or company to impress their worldview onto everyone else, the results could be extremely dystopian,” he added.

The AI doomsday debate is no longer hidden, as people who know AI systems and their capabilities the best are no longer keeping their fears to themselves, and the fear has already started to become serious.