“An apocalypse”: Why are experts sounding the alarm about AI risks?

In recent months, artificial intelligence has been in the news for all the wrong reasons: the use of deepfakes to commit fraud, AI systems to manipulate cyberattacks, and chatbots that encourage suicide, among others.

Experts are already warning that the technology is spiraling out of control. Researchers from some of the best-known AI companies have quit their jobs in recent weeks and publicly sounded the alarm that rapid technological development poses risks to society.

Doomsday theories have long been circulating that major advances in AI could pose an existential threat to humanity. Critics warn that the growth of artificial general intelligence (AGI), a hypothetical form of technology that can perform critical thinking and cognitive functions as well as the average human, could wipe out humans in the distant future.

But the recent series of public resignations of those tasked with ensuring that AI remains safe for…