Kara Swisher: AI Isn’t Going to Destroy Humanity—But the People Building It Might

The longtime tech journalist says she’s seen Silicon Valley make the same mistakes again and again.

Julia D'Ambola / BFA September 19, 2026, 12:41 PM ET Share Save As the AI industry likes to tell it, superintelligent bots could one day cure cancer and end poverty. Or in the worst-case scenario, they might wipe out all humans from the face of the Earth. In recent weeks, Silicon Valley’s existential concerns about the technology it is racing to build have blown up. The tech journalist Kara Swisher sees it differently. “We have to stop thinking AI is going to kill humanity,” she told Atlantic executive editor Adrienne LaFrance at The Atlantic Festival. If the AI future goes sideways, bots won’t be to blame. People will be. “These are people at the helm of these things.”