I hear that many people believe that the idea of advanced AI threatening human existence was invented by AI CEOs to hype their products. I’ve even been condescendingly informed of this, as if I am the one at risk of naively accepting AI companies’ preferred narratives.

If you are reading this, you are probably familiar enough with the decades-old AI safety community to know this isn’t true. But I don’t have a good direct way to reach the people who could use this information, and still I hate to leave such a falsehood uncontested. So if this is obvious, I hope the post is still perhaps useful to point more distant and confused people toward.

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I personally know that AI risk was not invented by the tech CEOs because I have been near the middle of it since at least 2009—before any of the prominent AI companies existed, let alone had CEOs who might be trying to hype their products.

Here's are some miscellaneous events over the years to give you a sense of the implausibility of this:

2008 - I attempt to contact Eliezer Yudkowsky to inform him that I [...]

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First published:
April 30th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TE5vsoabiLcBghfns/ai-risk-was-not-invested-by-ai-ceos-to-hype-their-companies

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Group of people sitting around a table in discussion.

Three people sitting on grass in front of stone building.

Large group of people posed together on coastal grass with ocean and buildings behind.

Panel discussion with four people seated on stage beneath large screen displaying

Whiteboard with handwritten notes about superhuman AI arguments in pink marker.

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“AI risk was not invested by AI CEOs to hype their companies” by KatjaGrace

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“AI risk was not invested by AI CEOs to hype their companies” by KatjaGrace