This Washington Post opinion column, published September 12, 2026, draws a parallel between the fraud conviction of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and the current wave of statements from AI researchers warning of existential risk. It argues that the AI industry’s confident, well-credentialed insiders deserve comparable scrutiny to SBF’s own once-trusted assurances, referencing recent comments from Anthropic-affiliated researchers estimating a greater than 10 percent chance of AI-driven extinction within a decade. The column frames this history as a reason for skepticism toward AI industry leaders’ current claims and predictions.
