Could AI really wipe out humanity and hijack the internet?
Experts say claims AI could kill all humans through biological weapons development had no scientific basis. Illustration: wildpixel/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenExperts say claims AI could kill all humans through biological weapons development had no scientific basis. Less defended individual websites might be attacked but “the internet itself is very unlikely to crumble”, they said.
- ▪Experts say claims AI could kill all humans through biological weapons development had no scientific basis.
- ▪Illustration: wildpixel/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenExperts say claims AI could kill all humans through biological weapons development had no scientific basis.
- ▪Less defended individual websites might be attacked but “the internet itself is very unlikely to crumble”, they said.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — Business |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/15/could-ai-really-wipe-out-humanity-and-hijack-the-internet |
| Publication time | Tue, 15 Sep 2026 17:54:48 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-15T18:31:52.559Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-15T18:31:52.559Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | nvJBQzme2wyD · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Experts say claims AI could kill all humans through biological weapons development had no scientific basis. Illustration: wildpixel/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenExperts say claims AI could kill all humans through biological weapons development had no scientific basis. Illustration: wildpixel/Getty ImagesAI (artificial intelligence)ExplainerCould AI really wipe out humanity and hijack the internet?We examine claims and counterclaims about the risks and calls to slow down the pace of AI developmentRobert Booth, Dan Milmo and Aisha DownTue 15 Sep 2026 13.54 EDTLast modified on Tue 15 Sep 2026 13.56 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleThere have been some shocking claims in recent days about AI safety: we face a 10% chance of doom; AIs are worse than nukes; a “botnet” threatens the…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Guardian — Business.
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