Why I quit the movement shaping AI

Home Shows Tech 24 To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: Tech 24 © France 24 05:21 Issued on: 04/10/2026 - 16:30 From the show Artificial intelligence insiders are quitting their jobs, saying the technology could mean the end of humanity. Pope Leo in France warned of a “paradise of machines”. And the New York Times reported this week that one of AI firm Anthropic’s co-founders spent months lobbying religious thinkers on the possibility that AI could be conscious. How did ideas that once belonged to a niche intellectual movement called effective altruism end up inside governments, AI companies, and the Church? Technology Correspondent Peter O'Brien fills in the dots – and makes a confession or two.