Grady Booch: high p(doom) insiders who stay at AI labs are 'feckless cowards'
Grady_Booch · x · 2026-09-11
Software engineering figure Grady Booch argues his own p(doom) remains asymptotically close to zero, while respecting those with higher estimates.
His target is a specific group: people who believe a company could build dangerous superintelligence, yet join it, and whose most actionable response is to quit and tell the media about vague fears. He calls them "feckless cowards" unable to live consistently with their beliefs, and says stirring up support for regulation is impotent because it outsources fear to "the adults in the room."
He reminds insiders who stay in hopes of a huge financial windfall that they are themselves the adults in the room. Any informed person of integrity who honestly believed humanity's destruction was imminent would undertake every subversive act to stop it — but that isn't happening.
Related event: Grady Booch calls high-p(doom) AI staff who won't quit 'cowards'(2 posts)→
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