If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All

by Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

What can AI really do to the world? This urgent and necessary analysis from Eliezer Yudowsky and Nate Soares details the risks and impending conflicts that may arise due to the use of artificial intelligence. If you are unsure how AI will impact you, read this book.

The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction—but it’s not too late to change course, as two of the field’s earliest researchers explain in this clarion call for humanity.

"May prove to be the most important book of our time.”—Tim Urban, Wait But Why

In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushing to build machines that will be smarter than any person. And the world is devastatingly unprepared for what would come next.
 
For decades, two signatories of that letter—Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares—have studied how smarter-than-human intelligences will think, behave, and pursue their objectives. Their research says that sufficiently smart AIs will develop goals of their own that put them in conflict with us—and that if it comes to conflict, an artificial superintelligence would crush us. The contest wouldn’t even be close.
 
How could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Why would it want to? Would it want anything at allí In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares walk through 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 under the sun. And if anyone builds it, everyone dies.

“The best no-nonsense, simple explanation of the AI risk problem I've ever read.”—Yishan Wong, Former CEO of Reddit

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316595643
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	09/16/2025
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY is one of the founding researchers of the field of AGI alignment, which is concerned with understanding how smarter-than-human intelligences think, behave, and pursue their goals.  He appeared on TIME magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People In AI, was one of the twelve public figures featured in The New York Times’s “Who’s Who Behind the Dawn of the Modern Artificial Intelligence Movement,” and was one of the seven thought leaders spotlighted in The Washington Post’s discussion of “AI’s Rival Factions.”  He spoke on the main stage at 2023’s TED conference and has been discussed or interviewed in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Forbes, Wired, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Economist, and many other venues.  He has close to 200,000 followers on X, where he frequently dialogues with prominent public figures including the heads of frontier AI labs.
 
NATE SOARES is the President of MIRI. He has been working in the field for over a decade, after previous experience at Microsoft and Google. Soares is the author of a large body of technical and semi-technical writing on AI alignment, has been interviewed in Vanity Fair and the Financial Times, and has spoken on conference panels alongside many of the AI field’s leaders.

Editorial Reviews

A timely and terrifying education on the galloping havoc AI could unleash—unless we grasp the reins and take control."—Kirkus

“If we build superintelligent machines without guardrails, we’re not just risking jobs or art, we’re risking everything. This book doesn’t exaggerate. It tells the truth. If we don’t act, we may not get another chance.”—Frances Fisher, actor

“The authors present in clear and simple terms the dangers inherent in 'superintelligent' artificial brains that are 'grown, not crafted' by computer scientists. A quick and worthwhile read for anyone who wants to understand and participate in the ongoing debate about whether and how to regulate AI.”—Joan Feigenbaum, Grace Murray Hopper Professor of Computer Science, Yale University

“A good book, worth reading to understand the basic case for why many people, even those who are generally very enthusiastic about speeding up technological progress, consider superintelligent AI uniquely risky."—Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum

“A shocking book that captures the insanity and hubris of efforts to create thinking machines that could kill us all. But it's not over yet. As the authors insist: ‘where there's life, there's hope.’”—Dorothy Sue Cobble, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Labor Studies, Rutgers University

“If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies is an urgent, well-reported and persuasive warning about the grave danger humanity faces from reckless AI development.”—Alex Winter, actor and filmmaker

"If you want to be able to assess the risk posed by AI, you will need to understand the worst-case scenario. This book is an exceptionally lucid and rigorous account of how very wrong humankind's quest for a general AI could go. You have been warned!"—Christopher Clark, Regius Professor of History, University of Cambridge

“Once only the realm of sci-fi, superintelligence is almost at our doorstep. We don't know for sure what is going to happen when it arrives, but I'm glad we at least have this book raising the tough questions that needs to be asked while the rest of the industry buries its head in the sand.”—Liv Boeree, philanthropist and poker champion

From the Publisher

2025-05-30
Making the unimaginable feel real, apocalyptic scenarios visualize AI’s potential to tip humanity into extinction.

As signaled by their alarming title, Yudkowsky and Soares issue a stark warning: Unless we act now to contain powerful superintelligent AI systems, humanity may not survive. Yudkowsky, co-founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and Soares, its president, target politicians, CEOs, policymakers, and the general public in their urgent plea. The book opens with an accessible breakdown of what AI is, how it’s built, and why even its creators often can’t comprehend the accelerating complexity of their own systems. Through parablelike vignettes, the authors expose the underlying realities of AI algorithms—advanced AIs are not engineered so much as grown, operating with opaque and unpredictable results, untethered from human values. The most chilling passages describe how AIs could escape computers and manipulate the physical and financial worlds, eventually repurposing Earth’s resources to serve alien objectives or replacing humanity with their own “favorite things.” The authors warn, “Nobody has the knowledge or skill to make a superintelligence that does their bidding,” arguing that world governments must cooperate to restrict or ideally halt AI research. Policymakers have not yet grasped the full implications of these advanced systems, and the public hasn’t felt the impact in their lives, but the authors caution they must be persuaded to act immediately. While some scenarios seem extreme or unrealistic, including hoping global leaders can agree on defining the problem or collaborating on solutions, the book’s arguments that the risks are elevated and time is short are persuasive. There is excellent information and food for thought here, including links to resources for readers motivated to join the fray.

A timely and terrifying education on the galloping havoc AI could unleash—unless we grasp the reins and take control.

Kirkus Reviews