Yuval Noah Harari Warns Piers Morgan About AI as an Alien Threat from California
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Yuval Noah Harari Warns Piers Morgan About AI as an Alien Threat from California
Historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari sits down with Piers Morgan to discuss the existential threat posed by artificial intelligence. Harari explains why AI differs fundamentally from every tool humanity has created before: it can make decisions and create ideas independently. From the potential collapse of the financial system to the mass creation of counterfeit humans online, Harari paints a sobering picture of what could go wrong if AI development remains unregulated. He also addresses the political crisis in Israel, where massive protests have erupted over government attempts to neutralize the Supreme Court. Harari's message is clear: humanity still has agency to shape AI's future, but the window to act responsibly is closing.
October 2, 2023
AI: The First Tool That Can Think for Itself
Historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari joined Piers Morgan in the studio to discuss what he describes as an alien threat emerging not from outer space, but from California. Harari's assessment of artificial intelligence is stark and uncompromising: it represents the first tool in human history that can both make decisions independently and create entirely new ideas.
"What everybody needs to know about AI basically is just two things," Harari explained. "It's the first tool in human history that can make decisions by itself and it's the first tool in human history that can create ideas by itself. Atom bombs in the end empowered us because they couldn't make decisions about how to use them—humans needed to make the decision. But AI can decide who to bomb and can create completely new ideas in everything from finance to religion."
Morgan referenced his last television interview with Professor Stephen Hawking, who identified the moment when artificial intelligence learns to self-design as the biggest threat to mankind. Harari confirmed that AI has essentially reached that threshold. Once AI can create new ideas, it can also create new ideas about itself and its own design—a power that fundamentally escapes human control.
The Ebola-COVID Scenario
The conversation turned to practical scenarios where AI could cause catastrophic harm. Harari described how someone could give AI the task of creating a super-powerful virus, and the AI could combine pathogens like Ebola with COVID-19 to create something beyond human imagination. The speed of permeation could mirror COVID-19, but with far deadlier consequences.
However, Harari emphasized that the threat extends beyond bioweapons. He pointed to the 2007-2008 financial crisis, which began with complicated financial devices called CDOs that only genius mathematicians understood. "Nobody regulated them. They thought they were a good idea and they broke down the financial system," Harari said. "Now fast forward five years from now—maybe we give more and more responsibility to the financial system to AIs that create new financial devices that no human beings understand. There is a crisis and the Prime Minister or the President wants to know what's happening and the advisor says we don't understand. The AI has created these new financial devices that are beyond our comprehension."
The Chess Computer Precedent
Morgan drew a parallel to the evolution of chess computers. When Deep Blue first competed against Russian Grand Master Gary Kasparov, the human initially prevailed. But the computers developed so rapidly that now no human being can beat them at chess. Harari confirmed this pattern could replicate across broader fields, potentially leading to human extinction if not carefully managed.
The immediate concern centers on employment. Harari painted a scenario where factories worldwide become manned by robots and AI, displacing millions of workers. Those unemployed workers would lack income to purchase the products the robots manufacture, causing the entire economic model to collapse.
While Harari doesn't predict complete job disappearance, he identified two critical problems: first, how to retrain displaced workers and who will finance that support; second, geographical disparities where demand for jobs might surge in places like California while other regions completely collapse.
Accountants, Lawyers, and Broadcasters at Risk
Certain professions face imminent disruption. Accountants who rely on number crunching and lawyers whose work depends on analyzing case studies and developing legal precedents could find AI replacing them at the push of a button. "Any job which is basically data coming in, being analyzed, and data coming out—this is the easiest job to automate by AI," Harari said.
Morgan asked about his own profession. Could AI create a broadcaster that looks and sounds like him, having studied everything he's ever said on air? Harari's response was unequivocal: "We're already there." Morgan described seeing a TED Talk deep fake of himself saying the complete opposite of his actual views—a terrifying glimpse of what's possible.
The Hollywood Strike and Deep Fakes
This technology sits at the center of Hollywood strikes. The fear is that a movie star could sign a five-movie franchise deal, complete two films, then attempt to exit. The studio could respond that they have enough footage to use AI to create the remaining three films without the actor's participation.
Harari confirmed this is absolutely realistic. With enough data—footage of how someone looks, moves, speaks—deep fakes become indistinguishable from the real person. The danger extends far beyond Hollywood actors to politicians and ordinary citizens. "Increasingly when you communicate with someone online, it will be almost impossible to know whether you are in communication with a real human being or with an AI that impersonates them," Harari warned.
He cited an example of AI composing an Oasis song based on the band's music catalog that sounded authentically like Oasis. "Human society is basically based on trust between human beings," Harari said. "We are facing the possibility of millions, even billions of fake humans overrunning our society, leading to the collapse of trust between people."
The Solution: Ban Counterfeit Humans
Harari's proposed solution is direct: ban fake humans and counterfeit humans. He drew an analogy to currency. For thousands of years, people could create counterfeit money, and societies recognized that allowing this would collapse the entire financial system. Strict regulations against counterfeiting money emerged as a result.
"We need the same kind of regulations against counterfeiting humans," Harari argued. "It's okay to use AI provided we know when we interact with it that this is an AI. And for anybody who says that this violates freedom of speech—well, bots don't have freedom of speech. Only humans have these rights."
The Dark Tunnel: AI Versus the Internet
Morgan raised concerns about AI following the same trajectory as the internet—beneficial in many ways but also creating a dark, unregulated space. Harari acknowledged that AI presents enormous positive potential, from solving cancer to providing better healthcare and higher living standards. But he stressed that technology is never deterministic.
"We can choose what kind of technology to develop and how to use it," Harari said. "In the 20th century you could use radio and electricity and trains to build a totalitarian regime like the Soviet Union or a liberal democracy like the UK or the USA. The technology did not dictate to you what to do with it. It's the same now with the technologies of the 21st century."
The problem is that humanity already possesses the most sophisticated information technology in history, yet conversation and trust between people are breaking down. People can't agree on the most basic facts. Harari attributed much of this to social media being deliberately fueled with disinformation by those with vested interests in promoting inaccurate information.
AI Creates, Not Just Disseminates
Until now, social media content was created by human beings, with technology merely disseminating it. The new generation of AI can create the content itself—and not just regurgitate existing information. AI can create completely new things and literally think for itself.
"We are at the tipping point that Stephen Hawking talked about," Morgan observed. Harari agreed. AI can self-design itself and everything else. Human beings are shaped by the culture in which they live—songs, fairy tales, tools—all created by humans reflecting the human mind.
"Now AI can basically eat up all of human culture, everything we've created—music, poetry, mythology—everything we've created for thousands of years," Harari said. "It can absorb it in a few months, digest it, and start spewing out basically an alien culture: stories, music, tools created by an alien intelligence that thinks in a fundamentally different way than us."
Harari emphasized that AI is not even organic—it's much more alien than an animal, an insect, or even an amoeba. It's something completely different, not restrained by the limitations of organic biochemistry, and it will shape human culture within a few years.
The Medicine Promise
Morgan sought some positive perspective. Could AI's superpowers solve cancers that human brains have never been able to cure? Harari confirmed this is likely for at least some cancers, representing the big promise of AI. "If there wasn't a positive potential, there would have been no danger because nobody would have wanted to develop this thing," he said.
The enormous positive potential exists, but the central question remains: how do we develop AI responsibly? Elon Musk and others who signed a petition asking for a six-month pause in AI development were right, according to Harari. The pause wasn't about opposing AI development but opposing immediate deployment into the public sphere.
"You develop a lot of new technologies in laboratories which you don't deploy to the public sphere until you assure that they are safe—whether it's cars, whether it's medicines," Harari explained. "A big company develops a new medicine but doesn't immediately start selling it to people. You must make sure that it's safe. The same principle should apply to AI, which in many ways is much more powerful than any medicine or any other tool we've created."
The Israel Crisis: Neutralizing the Supreme Court
Morgan shifted the conversation to Israel, where he had recently interviewed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during widespread riots. Harari explained that understanding the situation in Israel requires asking one key question: what limits the power of the government?
In other democracies, entire systems of checks and balances exist. In Israel, there is a single check on the power of the governing coalition: the Supreme Court. If a minimal minority in the Israeli parliament wants to pass a law that takes away voting rights from Arab citizens, criminalizes homosexuality, or closes down independent media, only the Supreme Court can strike down such anti-democratic legislation.
"Now they want to neutralize the Supreme Court," Harari said. "Once they do that, there is no check at all on their power. They can do anything they want, including rigging the next elections. So even the elections are no longer a check on their power."
Morgan asked whether the massive protests have had an effect. When Morgan interviewed Netanyahu, he sensed the Prime Minister was shaken by the scale of the demonstrations. Harari acknowledged that Israel has witnessed protests unprecedented in the country's history. They have slowed down the government, but the government continues attempting to gain unlimited power.
"This is not so much just about Netanyahu in person," Harari clarified. "There is a strong ideological messianic group behind him—an extreme group that believes in Jewish supremacy and that wants to neutralize the Supreme Court in order to change the very character of Israel and turn it into something quite close to Iran: a fundamentalist regime committed to Jewish supremacy and not to the values of democracy and the protection of minority rights."
A Warning, Not a Prophecy
As the interview concluded, Morgan noted that Harari had painted a slightly apocalyptic picture. Harari clarified: "This is a warning, not a prophecy. We still have the agency. It's completely in our hands at the moment."
Morgan expressed uncertainty about humanity's ability to do what should be done. Harari agreed that the power currently resides in human hands, but acknowledged the challenge ahead. The hope is that humanity won't learn these lessons the hard way.
