CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, warned that humanity is in a critical phase of developing artificial intelligence, a stage that “will test who we are as a species.”
In an extensive essay titled ‘The Adolescence of Technology’, Amodei argued that the world must “wake up” to the imminent risks of these systems, whose arrival could be imminent.
In his analysis, Amodei described the emergence of highly powerful AI as a “turbulent and inevitable rite of passage.”He pointed out that humanity is about to receive almost unimaginable power, and questioned whether current social, political and technological systems have the necessary maturity to handle it.
“The world needs to wake up to the urgency of acting on AI security,” said Amodei, who stressed that his essay seeks to shake consciences.
The executive, whose company is valued at USD 350,000 million, highlighted that the debate on the existential risks of AI gained relevance on the global political agenda since 2023. “We are considerably closer to the real danger in 2026 than we were in 2023,” he warned.
Amodei also criticized the attitude of some technology companies towards the dangers of AI, citing the proliferation of sexualized deepfakes generated by Grok AI, Elon Musk’s tool, and the creation of child abuse material by certain chatbots.
“Some companies have shown a worrying negligence toward the sexualization of minors in current models, which makes me doubt their willingness or ability to address autonomy risks in future versions,” he said.
Amodei anticipated that AI systems capable of autonomously building their own systems could be a year or two away.He defined a powerful AI as one that exceeds the level of a Nobel Prize winner in areas such as biology, mathematics or engineering, and that, in addition to interacting with humans, could control and even design robots for its own purposes.
Although he acknowledged that these advances could take more than two years, Amodeiso said that the speed of current progress requires maximum attention.“If the exponential trend continues, it won’t be many years before AI surpasses humans in virtually everything,” he wrote.
Anthropic’s CEO warned that the magnitude of the economic benefits, such as increased productivity and job losses, could be so great that society cannot impose limits.“This is the risk: AI is so powerful, so tempting, that it is very difficult for human civilization to impose any restrictions on it,” he explained.
Despite his warnings, Amodei was optimistic about the future.”If we act decisively and carefully, the risks can be overcome; I would even say that our chances are good. But we must understand that we face a serious civilizational challenge.”The Anthropic leader emphasized the need to act responsibly so that humanity can benefit from a transformative technology without falling into its dangers.
