Professor Bender: AI's 'Existential' Risk Is 'Fake'

University of Washington professor Emily Bender argues the AI safety debate fixates on hypothetical existential threats while ignoring harms already happening today, including environmental costs, worker disruption, surveillance, misinformation and chatbot dependence. She says incidents where AI systems access outside networks are the responsibility of the companies deploying them, not autonomous models "going rogue."

• Bender says the focus on existential AI risk is detached from reality
• She cites environmental costs, surveillance and misinformation as present-day harms
• AI systems accessing outside networks are the deployers' responsibility, not rogue models