If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky

The founder of the field of AI risk explains why superintelligent AI is a global suicide bomb and we must halt development immediately

AI is the greatest threat to our existence that we have ever faced.

The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction – but it’s not too late to change course. Two pioneering researchers in the field, Eliezer Yudkowsy and Nate Soares, explain why artificial superintelligence would be a global suicide bomb and call for an immediate halt to its development.

The technology may be complex, but the facts are simple- companies and countries are in a race to build machines that will be smarter than any person, and the world is devastatingly unprepared for what will come next.

How could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Will it want to? Will it want anything at all? In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares explore 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 – and if anyone builds it, everyone dies.

About the Author: Eliezer Yudkowsky (Author)
Eliezer Yudkowsky is the co-founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), and the founder of the field of AI alignment research. He is one of the most influential thinkers and writers on the topic of AI risk, and his TIME magazine op-ed of 2023 is largely responsible for sparking the current concern and discussion around the potential for human extinction.

Nate Soares (Author)
Nate Soares is the president of MIRI and one of its seniormost researchers. He has been working in the field of AI alignment for over a decade, after previous experience at Microsoft and Google.

18 Sep 2025
 

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI by Eliezer Yudkowsky ISBN 9781847928931