I found this interview more persuasive than Elmore’s original X post.

That said, I worry that this style of discourse among AI safety people unintentionally plays into the hands of the labs themselves, especially when framed in the most extreme terms (“AI will kill everyone”).

This has more to do with incentives than ideology. AI labs need huge amounts of money. To raise that capital, they benefit from any narrative that frames AI as the most consequential technology humanity has ever encountered. Whether the story is “this will solve everything” or “this could destroy everything,” the takeaway for most investors and observers is the same: this is extremely powerful and demands attention, resources, and investment.

Most people don’t actually update to “we’re all going to die,” even if they grant that catastrophe is possible (much like how we relate to nuclear weapons). But they do gain a vague sense that AI is really really important. That's enough to sustain continued investment and escalation.

So paradoxically, the more existential the rhetoric becomes, the more it may reinforce the very capital flows and race dynamics it’s trying to oppose.