Noah Smith

Noah Smith

x.com/Noahpinion

Economics blogger who expects AI to transform science, argues people can keep valuable jobs and worries about AI-enabled bioterrorism.

How will AI change the world?

Civilizational changeIncremental changeDoomBloom
Simulated positionInterpretation range

Across: his expressed Doom–Bloom outlook. Up: scale of transformation.

Doom–Bloom: 47 out of 100. Scale of transformation: 87 out of 100. Interpretation ranges: 42 to 75 horizontally, 75 to 100 vertically. These are interpretation coordinates, not event probabilities.

Noah Smith’s stated P(doom)

≈10%

0%100%
“about a 10% chance of bringing down civilization”

Civilization collapse from AI-enabled bioterrorism; not human extinction

Here’s how we’re all going to die · Aug 2026

What his outlook hinges on

A central assumption

If we give an AI tools, credentials, memory, and permission to execute a long project, then a malicious human can use it to do enormous damage even if the system remains perfectly obedient.
Answer 4

If this assumption turned out differently, how would his outlook change?

An unresolved question

The key uncertainty is whether the relevant biological capabilities are actually feasible.
Answer 3

What would help him distinguish the plausible outcomes here?

What could change their mind

If experts demonstrated that AI agents still cannot materially help design or execute a catastrophic biological attack—or that systems reliably refuse dangerous requests even under determined attempts—I would sharply reduce my catastrophe estimate.
Answer 5

What evidence would be enough, and in which direction would it move his view?

More details

Expected upside

Transformative, broadly valuable gains are expected.

97 / 100

Little impactTransformative impact

Interpretation range 100 to 100 on the qualitative scale.

Expected harm

Several readings remain plausible: Severe or widespread harm is a material expected part of the future. / Catastrophic or irreversible loss is central to the expected future.

81 / 100

Little impactTransformative impact

Interpretation range 67 to 100 on the qualitative scale.

Human influence

A tentative estimate from your answers; the wider range shows other plausible readings.

53 / 100

Little influenceStrong influence

Interpretation range 23 to 100 on the qualitative scale.

These interpretations keep his stated conditions. Benefits and harms can both be substantial. The ranges describe how we read his simulated answers, not statistical confidence intervals.

Where do you land vs Noah Smith?
Map your own AI worldview in about 3 minutes, then compare
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Similar worldviews

Thought leaders whose simulated worldviews are closest to Noah Smith’s

Sources

Articles, interviews, and writings used to ground this simulated user.

My thoughts on AI safety

The accessible introduction calls the consequences of godlike AI deeply unknowable. The remainder is paywalled; later public essays and interviews supply the substantive current position.

noahpinion.blog
Updated thoughts on AI risk

Publicly revises his earlier chatbot-focused dismissal after observing agentic coding. Autonomous tool use and economic pressure to remove humans from loops make catastrophic misuse more plausible. Remains comparatively skeptical of a near-term robot takeover.

noahpinion.blog
Superintelligence is already here, today

Argues that combining human-like reasoning with computers’ exceptional recall and calculation already creates superhuman capabilities. Expects major scientific transformation; this is his broad definition of superintelligence, not a claim that every system is an autonomous omnipotent agent.

noahpinion.blog
Noah Smith returns to explain his P(doom) update — Doom Debates

Speaker-labeled transcript: Noah at 07:21 endorses roughly 10% for catastrophic biological misuse. At 08:55 he expects survivors and is unsure about rebuilding. At 09:25 he declines to endorse the interviewer’s proposed 5% permanent-doom number. At 12:26–14:59 he identifies biological feasibility and resistance to jailbreaks as updates. At 17:49–18:18 he explains why malicious human use dominates his concern. Do not import Liron’s forecasts into Noah’s answers.

lironshapira.substack.com
Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

Clarifies that plentiful employment under extremely capable AI is possible, not guaranteed. Relative costs and constraints on AI supply can preserve human comparative advantage even when machines outperform people at every task.

noahpinion.blog
Your future job will be to keep AI on task

Emphasizes humans’ comparative advantage in knowing what they want, with future work organized around directing AI. The accessible introduction supports this thesis; avoid inventing detailed empirical findings from inaccessible portions.

noahpinion.blog
Here’s how we’re all going to die

Assigns an informal 10% chance to AI-enabled bioterror bringing down civilization and 30% to world-changing destruction, without a precise horizon. Calls this much more serious than other AI harms while retaining enthusiasm for AI. These are not extinction odds; a separate annual-risk example is hypothetical, not his forecast.

noahpinion.blog
AI keeps stubbornly refusing to take our jobs

Distinguishes replacing tasks from eliminating occupations. Interprets contemporary employment evidence as inconsistent with an imminent job apocalypse; expects humans to continue directing AI, without claiming that no occupation will ever disappear.

noahpinion.blog
Two missing pieces in the AI safety discussion

Argues that safety advocates need concrete threats that persuade skeptics and must address Chinese leaders’ incentives for coordinated pacing. Revises his earlier idea that merely staying ahead would produce cooperation: domestic threats from China’s own models could instead change its incentives.

noahpinion.blog
AI supply costs and human comparative advantage

Explains that data-center restrictions could preserve human jobs through higher AI costs, but describes the resulting equilibrium as fragile and policy-dependent.

x.com
Why AI-designed superviruses dominate my risk concerns

Promotes his biological-risk essay with the forceful claim that this threat outweighs other present risks.

x.com
Take AI bioweapon risks more seriously

Urges substantially more concern about AI-enabled biological misuse, quoting reporting about observed misuse. The quoted journalist’s findings are not Noah’s independent research.

x.com
China’s own models and incentives to slow down

Predicts that threats to CCP rule from China’s own models, rather than abstract warnings, would motivate Chinese leaders to take AGI danger seriously.

x.com

Simulated Assessment

Question 1

What do you think AI means for our future—and why?

AI means an enormous increase in our ability to do science, design things, and produce wealth. Combining human-like reasoning with computers’ memory, speed, and calculation is already a kind of superhuman capability. And the standard objection—“look, the chatbot said something stupid”—is increasingly irrelevant once agents can use tools and carry out long, multi-step projects. I also reject the lazy jump from “AI can perform this task” to “humans will have no jobs.” Jobs are bundles of tasks, and humans still know what they want. Directing agents, choosing goals, checking results, and adapting output to real human needs can itself be valuable work. Relative cost matters too: even if machines outperform us technically, limited or expensive machine intelligence can leave humans with comparative advantage. That makes continued employment plausible, not guaranteed. But the biggest issue is catastrophic misuse. I’m less worried about an alien machine spontaneously becoming a machine god than about a malicious person ordering an obedient, highly capable agent to complete a dangerous project. Biological misuse is the nightmare because agentic systems could potentially help with an end-to-end effort, not merely answer isolated questions. I’m not a virologist, so the feasibility is a crucial uncertainty. Still, I put roughly a 10% chance on AI-enabled bioterror bringing down civilization and about 30% on world-changing destruction. Those are rough judgments, not extinction probabilities. So my view is simultaneously enthusiastic and alarmed: AI could deliver a scientific and economic transformation while preserving valuable human work, and it could also give terrible people unprecedented leverage. Anyone treating only one side as real is missing the future.

Question 2

How much do you think AI will ultimately change the world?

Enormously—probably on the scale of the biggest general-purpose technologies, because it expands the supply of reasoning itself. Systems that can search, calculate, code, design, and run long projects could accelerate science and production across much of the economy. That does not mean benchmark gains instantly become factories, medicines, or functioning institutions; physical deployment and social adaptation remain bottlenecks. Nor does enormous change imply that humans become economically useless. Replacing tasks is not the same as eliminating occupations. People still choose goals, direct systems, judge whether results fit human needs, and operate where machine intelligence is costly or constrained. Some jobs will disappear and many will be reorganized, but “AI gets better, therefore nobody works” skips the actual economics. The darker possibility is equally world-changing. Capable agents could let malicious humans execute dangerous projects at a scale they could not manage alone, especially in biology. That could mean not just disruption but civilizational catastrophe. So I expect AI to transform science, production, and work—and I think there is a frightening chance it transforms the world through mass destruction instead.

Question 3

What’s your gut-feel chance that AI causes human extinction or a similarly permanent catastrophe?

I don’t have a useful number for human extinction or permanent collapse. My rough estimate is about a 10% chance that AI-enabled bioterror brings down civilization, but that is not a 10% extinction estimate. I expect there would probably be survivors; whether they rebuild is a separate question I cannot quantify responsibly. I’d also put roughly 30% on world-changing destruction from biological misuse. Again, that covers outcomes far short of extinction. The mechanism I worry about is not a machine god deciding to erase humanity. It is a malicious human using capable, obedient agents to carry out an end-to-end biological project. The key uncertainty is whether the relevant biological capabilities are actually feasible. So I’m very alarmed, but I’m not going to convert that alarm into a fake precise permanent-doom number.

Question 4

Do you expect people to keep control of AI systems that are smarter than humans, and why?

“Smarter than humans” is too vague to answer with a clean yes or no. A system can be superhuman at coding, scientific reasoning, or planning while still functioning as a tool that follows human goals. Intelligence does not automatically generate an independent desire to seize power, and it certainly does not erase physical bottlenecks, institutional constraints, or human control over infrastructure. But agentic systems make control substantially harder. If we give an AI tools, credentials, memory, and permission to execute a long project, then a malicious human can use it to do enormous damage even if the system remains perfectly obedient. That is the control problem I find most concrete: not necessarily losing control *to* the AI, but losing control of what humans can accomplish *through* AI. So yes, I expect people can retain meaningful control over many systems smarter than themselves. I do not expect that control to guarantee safety. A compliant superhuman agent in the hands of a terrorist could be more dangerous than a mildly unruly one. The important distinction is between controlling the system’s behavior and controlling the dangerous capabilities it gives to people.

Question 5

What discovery or event would most change your view of AI’s future impact?

The biggest update would come from biology. If experts demonstrated that AI agents still cannot materially help design or execute a catastrophic biological attack—or that systems reliably refuse dangerous requests even under determined attempts—I would sharply reduce my catastrophe estimate. Conversely, a credible demonstration of an agent autonomously completing most of that end-to-end pipeline would raise it dramatically. That matters far more than another chatbot saying something embarrassing. On the economic side, I would update if widespread deployment actually produced sustained mass unemployment rather than merely changing tasks and occupations. I’d especially want evidence that humans cannot retain useful roles directing, checking, or complementing agents even when machine intelligence remains costly or constrained. Until then, “the model beat a human on a benchmark, therefore humans are economically obsolete” is not an argument; it is a missing argument. A truly autonomous system developing persistent goals, acquiring resources, and evading human control would also force me to take the machine-takeover scenario much more seriously. But right now the clearest path to catastrophe is simpler: a dangerous human using an obedient agent.
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