A September 2024 article by Kevin Klyman and Raphael Piliero in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists examining the comparison between artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons. The authors argue the analogy offers some lessons for risk mitigation but that the differences are more significant: AI development is diffuse across tens of firms and countries, making it far harder to contain than nuclear technology. Free to read.
Why I recommend it: The nuclear analogy drives a lot of AI policy proposals, from IAEA-style agencies to licensing regimes. This piece is the clearest short explanation of where that analogy helps and where it breaks.
A 39-page history by SJ Beard (University of Cambridge) and Émile P. Torres of how existential risk became an academic field, tracing three successive waves: an explicitly transhumanist and techno-utopian first wave, a second built on longtermism and closely tied to Effective Altruism, and a third formed where the field met disaster studies, environmental science and public policy. Posted to SSRN January 2021, revised March 2021.
Why I recommend it: Free — the full PDF downloads without an account. This is the piece to read before anyone quotes an extinction probability at you, because it shows the field's assumptions were inherited from a particular movement rather than discovered. It is a working paper posted by the authors, not journal peer-reviewed, and the authors are participants in the debate they are describing, so it is a history written from inside.
Free question-and-answer site explaining AI risk arguments in plain language, founded by Rob Miles and maintained by volunteers. Answers are organised as linked questions from beginner to advanced, covering how AI is advancing, why systems may pursue goals, alignment research and AI governance. Includes Stampy, a chatbot that answers AI safety questions with sources. Open source on GitHub; run as a project of Ashgro Inc, a US 501(c)(3) charity.
Why I recommend it: The clearest free place to find out what people mean when they talk about AI risk, written so you can follow it without a technical background. Be clear about what it is: this is advocacy, not a neutral survey of the debate. The homepage opens with 'it could lead to human extinction', and the whole site is built by people who already hold that view, so you will get their strongest arguments rather than the strongest objections to them. Their own chatbot warns it can be inaccurate — check its sources before repeating anything. Read it to understand the case, then read the critics of it, and pair it with the AI Basics page here for the numbers.
Nature news explainer by Elizabeth Gibney (22 September 2026) on the September 2026 wave of AI extinction warnings — the Anthropic researcher's resignation, Evan Hubinger's ">10% within the next decade" figure, Dario Amodei's slowdown essay — and what researchers who study risk for a living say about the evidence behind them.
Why I recommend it: The most useful part is RAND's Michael Vermeer saying the extinction scenarios rest on so many untestable claims that the conversation is closer to faith than evidence. Read it before repeating any percentage you see on social media — those numbers are personal estimates, not measurements.
A statement jointly signed by a historic coalition of AI experts: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
From the site: A statement jointly signed by a historic coalition of experts: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
Personal site of the philosopher behind Superintelligence and the simulation argument, with free full-text papers on existential risk, human enhancement, anthropics and the future of AI. Many of the ideas now standard in AI risk debates started here; his work is also widely criticised, so read it alongside its critics.
From the site: Oxford philosopher (videos, papers, interviews, bio, etc.)
Why I recommend it: Read the primary source rather than summaries of it — then read the critics, several of whom are already in the hub.
Newsletter and blog covering transformative AI risk, AI alignment, forecasting, longtermism and how to navigate the century ahead. By Holden Karnofsky; posts are freely readable with an optional audio version.
From the site: For audio version, search for "Cold Takes Audio" in your podcast app
SSRN working paper by Carla Zoe Cremer (Oxford) and Luke Kemp (Cambridge) examining how existential risk studies can be made more rigorous, pluralistic and democratic. Argues for separating extinction ethics from risk analysis and drawing on broader risk-assessment literature.
Émile P. Torres's weekly newsletter examining the ideologies driving Silicon Valley — effective altruism, longtermism, TESCREAL, and the race to build artificial superintelligence — from a critical, insider-turned-skeptic perspective.
From the site: Stop doomscrolling and just read this! Click to read Realtime Techpocalypse Newsletter, by Émile P. Torres, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
A long-form critical essay by Émile P. Torres arguing that the effective altruism movement has become a cult-like ideology with its own doctrines, charismatic leaders, jargon and social controls — and that this matters for how AI is being developed.
From the site: Understanding the "Scientology of Silicon Valley." (7,700 words)
The academic and popular-writing home page of philosopher Émile P. Torres, covering existential risk, the history of human-extinction thought, and critical work on TESCREAL ideologies in Silicon Valley.
Project from the Foresight Institute collecting expert interviews, essays and worldbuilding on plausible good long-term futures rather than only the risks.
Why I recommend it: A deliberate counterweight if the safety reading has left you gloomy. It is advocacy for optimism, so read it as a position, not a finding.
Cambridge research centre studying risks that could threaten humanity's long-term future, with open papers, seminars and policy submissions.
From the site: We study existential and global catastrophic risks & foster a worldwide community of academics, technologists and policy-makers working to mitigate these risks.
Why I recommend it: Academic and careful. Their reading lists and seminar recordings are the fastest way into the field's actual literature.
Non-profit working on risks from advanced technology, publishing policy work, the AI Safety Index, open letters and a large free podcast and newsletter archive.
From the site: FLI works on reducing extreme risks from transformative technologies. We are best known for developing the Asilomar AI governance principles.
Why I recommend it: Their AI Safety Index is the most readable scorecard of what the big labs actually do about safety. They campaign, so read the policy pages as arguments.
Personal site of Andrew Critch, mathematician and AI safety researcher, collecting his papers, talks and writing on multi-agent risk and existential safety.
Why I recommend it: Denser than most safety writing and worth the effort. Note the site refuses automated visits, so the picture here may be a screenshot.
A free explainer of Roko's Basilisk, the AI thought experiment about a hypothetical future superintelligence that would punish people who knew about it but did not help bring it into existence.
Stanford economist Charles I. Jones works out, in plain economic terms, how much money it would be worth spending to lower catastrophic risks from advanced AI — comparing it to the roughly 4 percent of GDP the U.S. effectively spent during Covid-19.
LessWrong wiki article explaining the canonical AI safety thought experiment: how an artificial general intelligence with an innocuous goal could pose an existential risk by pursuing it single-mindedly. Covers the orthogonality thesis and instrumental convergence.
