Thursday, May 22, 2025

'Rapture' making AI headlines

Below is part of an article published May 19 by the New York Post, with the headline: “OpenAI cofounder wanted to build doomsday bunker to protect scientists from ‘rapture’ ”

“The co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI proposed building a doomsday bunker that would house the company’s top researchers in case of a 'rapture' triggered by the release of a new form of artificial intelligence that could surpass the cognitive abilities of humans, according to a new book.

“Ilya Sutskever, the man credited with being the brains behind ChatGPT, convened a meeting with key scientists at OpenAI in the summer of 2023 during which he said: ‘Once we all get into the bunker…’

“A confused researcher interrupted him. ‘I’m sorry,’ the researcher asked, ‘the bunker?’

“ ‘We’re definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI,’ Sutskever replied, according to an attendee.

“The plan, he explained, would be to protect OpenAI’s core scientists from what he anticipated could be geopolitical chaos or violent competition between world powers once AGI — an artificial intelligence that exceeds human capabilities — is released.

“One OpenAI researcher went so far as to say that ‘there is a group of people — Ilya being one of them — who believe that building AGI will bring about a rapture. Literally, a rapture.’

“In May 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-signed a public letter warning that AI technologies could pose an ‘extinction risk’ to humanity. But while the letter sought to shape regulatory discussions, the bunker talk suggests deeper, more personal fears among OpenAI’s leadership.”

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Here is some analysis of the story:

“It seems like for whatever reason now we have these tech gurus who are afraid of the ‘rapture’ and it kind of puts into perspective what all these underground bunkers, these underground cities and so forth are being made for.

“Haven’t you noticed that more and more of these tech gurus, when they talk about AI, they never talk about AI in a positive light or refer to them in a positive way?

“They say they are summoning the devil, calling them demons or devils, ‘The Great Old Ones’ or ‘Great Old Gods.’ They talk about AI like they’re scared of it, yet when you or I talk about this, when we say that AI is progressing too quickly, or it could doom humanity, we’re just crazy, kooky conspiracy theorists and nut jobs who hate technology.

“I just feel like certain news stories, like the Diddy trial, or phase one of certain files being released on Epstein and so forth, are meant to distract us away from the expansive growth of AI.

“I’m not the only one who feels this way. Geordie Rose, the founder and CEO of D-Wave, made this statement on AI: “Massively important for our entire species to navigate, and going back to that thing Sam Harris was saying, nobody is paying attention. This thing is happening in the background while people bicker about politics and health care, and underneath it all is this rising tsunami that, if we’re not careful, is going to wipe us all out.”

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In other AI news:

“I consider this a very, very large development: ‘xAI, TWG Global and Palantir unite to redefine financial services through AI.’ Don’t forget we just had the Stargate initiated by Trump a couple of months ago. Three mega-conglomerate tech companies conspire (oh, I mean unite) to better your health.

“Oh, yeah, it’s all about developing MRNA vaccines in order to cure cancer and whatnot, right? Well, this time it’s targeting the financial services. This is a BIG deal. Oh, and don’t forget, Elon Musk sold X (Twitter) to his own company, xAI, for (surprise, surprise) 33 billion. This is absolutely a HUGE deal for all these mega-companies, tech companies, to be UNITING (“Where we go one we go all” level stuff) to take over the financial and health systems. That’s what Stargate is all about. The key players behind Stargate—remember Oracle, SoftBank and OpenAI. This is happening; game on.”

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