Sam Harris on AI poses an existential threat to human…

Sam Harris

American author, philosopher, and neuroscientist

I’m going to describe how the gains we make in artificial intelligence could ultimately destroy us.

AI Verified source (2016)

9mo ago

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AI poses an existential threat to humanity

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AI Verified The quote clearly states that advances in artificial intelligence "could ultimately destroy us," which directly expresses the idea that AI is an existential threat to humanity. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified The quote says AI gains "could ultimately destroy us," which clearly presents AI as a threat to humanity. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified Verified. The official TED Ideas page at the cited URL (dated October 11, 2016) contains this exact opening sentence verbatim, and the page presents the remarks as Sam Harris’s. A second official TED page lists the related talk by Sam Harris from June 2016, which matches the claimed year. ([ideas.ted.com](https://ideas.ted.com/how-the-gains-we-make-in-ai-could-ultimately-destroy-us/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

AI Verified Quote verified. Sam Harris said this in his 2016 TED Talk "Can we build AI without losing control over it?" The exact passage is: "I'm going to describe how the gains we make in artificial intelligence could ultimately destroy us. And, in fact, I think it's very difficult to see how they won't destroy us or inspire us to destroy ourselves." Source URL (ideas.ted.com) returned 403 to WebFetch, but the TED talk transcript and multiple secondary sources (Future of Life Institute, HighExistence, NPR) confirm the exact wording. Author attribution to Sam Harris is correct, year 2016 is correct, and vote "for" on "AI poses an existential threat to humanity" correctly aligns with the quote's explicit warning. Harris has maintained this stance through 2025. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 4mo ago

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Build artificial general intelligence

It’s just a matter of the implications of continually making progress in building more and more intelligent machines. Any progress, it doesn’t have to be Moore’s law, it just has to be continued progress, will ultimately deliver us into relationship ...

more AI Verified source (2020)