J. Michael Dennis ll.l., ll.m.
AI Foresight Strategic Advisor
New warnings from the artificial-intelligence industry have revived a long-running debate over whether advanced AI models could escape human control and threaten humanity survival. Concerns over the potential risks of the technology are rising as new AI models become more powerful, heightening both the potential for misuse by people with criminal aims, such as creating and spreading a disease that kills most of the world’s population, and the risk of AI systems going rogue in a dangerous way.
Doomsday scenarios generally fall into two categories: An AI that achieves self-improving superintelligence and controls people instead of vice versa, or AI used by a rogue state or nefarious actors.
Worries that artificial intelligence might overcome human limits on its reach or actions are not new.
Alan Turing, a British mathematician widely regarded as one of the earliest authorities on artificial intelligence, predicted in 1951 that AI would eventually take control from humans. Less than a decade later, Norbert Wiener, another mathematician, warned intelligent machines would seek to accomplish their own objectives and humans would not be able to stop them.
In 2026, how reasonable are fears that AI, either by escaping human control or through misuse by unscrupulous people, could cause a cataclysmic event or the downfall of civilization?
No one knows.
Experts across computer science, philosophy and other fields have envisioned numerous routes by which a future AI system might cause a global catastrophe, either by escaping human control or in the hands of an unscrupulous people. They range from deploying weapons and identifying a lethal pathogen to manipulating governments into conflict or disrupting the food, energy and communications networks societies rely on to function.
There is no widely accepted estimate for how soon any of these scenarios might happen and no consensus on their likelihood.
J. Michael Dennis ll.l., ll.m.
AI Foresight Strategic Advisor
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J. Michael Dennis ll.l., ll.m.
AI Foresight Strategic Advisor
Based in Kingston Ontario, J. Michael Dennis is a former barrister and solicitor, a Crisis & Reputation Management Expert, a Public Affairs & Corporate Communications Specialist. Today, J. Michael Dennis advises executives, boards, and organizations navigating the strategic uncertainty created by artificial intelligence. J. Michael Dennis’s work focuses on separating real AI capability from hype, identifying long-term risks and opportunities, and helping leaders make clear, responsible decisions in an uncertain technological future.
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