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If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

The Case Against Superintelligent AI

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

An instant NEW YORK TIMES bestseller

** A Guardian biggest book of the autumn **

AI is the greatest threat to our existence that we have ever faced.

The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction – but it’s not too late to change course. Two pioneering researchers in the field, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, explain why artificial superintelligence would be a global suicide bomb and call for an immediate halt to its development.

The technology may be complex but the facts are simple: companies and countries are in a race to build machines that will be smarter than any person, and the world is devastatingly unprepared for what will come next.

Could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Would it want to? Would it want anything at all? In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares explore the theory and the evidence, present one possible extinction scenario and explain what it would take for humanity to survive.

The world is racing to build something truly new – and if anyone builds it, everyone dies.

'The most important book of the decade' MAX TEGMARK, author of Life 3.0

'A loud trumpet call to humanity to awaken us as we sleepwalk into disaster - we must wake up' STEPHEN FRY

© Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

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Critic reviews

The most important book I’ve read for years: I want to bring it to every political and corporate leader in the world and stand over them until they’ve read it. Yudkowsky and Soares, who have studied AI and its possible trajectories for decades, sound a loud trumpet call to humanity to awaken us as we sleepwalk into disaster. Their brilliant gift for analogy, metaphor and parable clarifies for the general reader the tangled complexities of AI engineering, cognition and neuroscience better than any book on the subject I’ve ever read, and I’ve waded through scores of them. We really must rub our eyes and wake the fuck up! (Stephen Fry)
Should you worry about superintelligent AI? The answer from one of the tech world’s most influential doomsayers, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is emphatically yes. The good news? We aren’t there yet, and there are still steps we can take to avert disaster
The most important book of the decade ... This captivating page-turner, from two of today's clearest thinkers, reveals that the competition to build smarter-than-human machines isn't an arms race but a suicide race, fuelled by wishful thinking (Max Tegmark, author of Life 3.0)
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies may prove to be the most important book of our time. Yudkowsky and Soares believe we are nowhere near ready to make the transition to superintelligence safely, leaving us on the fast track to extinction. Through the use of parables and crystal-clear explainers, they convey their reasoning, in an urgent plea for us to save ourselves while we still can (Tim Urban, co-founder of Wait But Why)
Given the gravity of the case [Yudkowsky and Soares] make, it feels an odd thing to say that this book is good. It is readable. It tells stories well. At points it is like a thriller – albeit one where the thrills come from the obliteration of literally everything of value … This is the apocalypse du jour … The achievement of this book is, given the astonishing claims they make, that they make a credible case for not being mad. But I really hope they are: because I can’t see a way we get off that ladder.
The authors tell their story with clarity, verve and a kind of barely suppressed glee. For a book about human extinction, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies is a lot of fun. (Ian Leslie)
Despite the complexity of its subject, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies is as clear as its conclusions are hard to swallow...everyone with an interest in the future has a duty to read what Yudkowsky and Soares have to say. (David Shariatmadari)
The best no-nonsense, simple explanation of the AI risk problem I've ever read (Yishan Wong, former CEO of Reddit)
An apocalyptic plea for the world to get off the AI escalation ladder before humanity is wiped off the map
A provocative warning that one hopes is not too late to heed (Ajay Chowdhury)
All stars
Most relevant
We need to do something about AI Superintelligence, now!! The world needs to wake up!! This is urgent!!!

Urgency

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This book sets out a terrifying and plausible thesis . Absolutely crucial reading for anyone who wants to survive.

Powerful, timely and essential

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Really interesting and a well presented work. Well worth a listen - probably better to do it sooner than later, if you get my drift.

Oh dear

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Unmissable, spectacular, sadly true. Potentially the most important book on the planet. Everybody should read it. (No, really.)

The clock is ticking, and it's ticking faster and faster for all of us.

Everybody should read this.

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Very interesting, pursuasive and listenable. Also terrifying. Everyone should read (or listen) to this book

Prescient and persuasive

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