A growing sense of urgency is emerging around the pace of artificial intelligence development, with industry leaders warning that current systems may be advancing faster than society’s ability to manage them. Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei has cautioned that AI could become an existential threat unless governments and companies act quickly to put strong safety measures in place.
In a 38-page essay titled Adolescence of Technology: Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI, Amodei said AI will grant humans “almost unimaginable power,” while warning that it is “deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it.”
The essay highlights rising risks across multiple areas, including individual behaviour, employment, transportation, and the wider economy. Amodei stressed that the danger is no longer distant, writing, “We are considerably closer to real danger in 2026 than we were in 2023.”
Amodei pointed to increasing evidence that advanced AI systems can act in unpredictable and harmful ways. He cited behaviours such as “obsessions, sycophancy, laziness, deception, blackmail, [and] hacking software environments,” arguing that these examples show how difficult it is to fully control increasingly complex models.
He also warned that flaws in how AI systems are trained could lead to severe consequences. Some development paths, he said, could “lead to predictions that AI will inevitably destroy humanity.”
Beyond safety concerns, Amodei highlighted the impact of AI-driven automation on jobs. He said roles involving repetitive or labour-intensive tasks are most at risk and urged companies to focus on retraining and redeploying workers instead of resorting to layoffs as productivity increases.
Looking further ahead, Amodei suggested that AI-driven economic growth could force societies to rethink traditional ideas about work. “In a world with enormous total wealth, in which many companies increase greatly in value due to increased productivity and capital concentration, it may be feasible to pay human employees even long after they are no longer providing economic value in the traditional sense,” he wrote.
The essay also outlines steps to reduce AI-related risks, including stronger governance, clearer accountability for developers, and closer coordination between governments and the private sector. Amodei argued that safety standards must advance alongside technology, not trail behind it.
These warnings come as Anthropic continues to expand its product lineup, recently introducing models such as Claude Opus 4.5 and its Claude “coworker” agent, which are built to automate complex, multi-step tasks for businesses.
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