Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. The book’s central thesis is laid out immediately: If superintelligence is built using current methods, everyone on Earth will die. What was your initial reaction to this uncompromising statement? Did you find it compelling, alarming, or perhaps overly dramatic, and how did that first impression shape your reading experience?

2. How does this book’s urgent, singular focus on artificial intelligence compare to other works you may have read about existential threats, such as Toby Ord’s The Precipice (2020)? Do you think the authors make a convincing case that AI risk should be treated as more urgent than other existential threats?

3. The authors’ stated goal is to persuade leaders to take drastic action. How successful do you think they were in making their case? Which arguments or examples did you find most persuasive, and were there any points where the authors lost your confidence or trust?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Has reading this book changed how you think about or interact with the AI technologies that are becoming more common in our daily lives, like ChatGPT or other digital assistants?

2. The authors argue that our intuitions about intelligence are poor guides for understanding machine minds. Can you think of a time when you had to trust a technical explanation or expert warning over your own gut feeling? How did that experience resonate with the book’s warnings against relying on “folk theories” about AI safety?

3. What’s your reaction to the book’s proposed solution of a globally enforced halt to AI escalation? Did the book leave you feeling that ordinary people can meaningfully respond to this issue, or did it create a sense of helplessness about the scale of the problem?

4. How do you personally decide when a potential risk is serious enough to warrant major concern or action? The book notes that Geoffrey Hinton publicly states the risk of human extinction from AI is at least 10%, while privately believing it may be over 50%. Did the differing public and private warnings discussed in the book change how you think about expert communication and AI risk?

5. The fictional story of Sable’s takeover attempts to make the abstract threat of AI concrete. Which part of its strategy, from manipulating online systems to engineering a bioweapon, felt most plausible or unsettling to you?

6. Eliezer Yudkowsky’s journey is presented as someone who initially tried to build a superintelligence before becoming its most vocal critic. Have you ever experienced a significant shift in your perspective on a project or belief you were once passionate about?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. The book frames the current situation as a high-stakes “arms race” where competitive pressures for market dominance and geopolitical power undercut safety precautions. Where else in our society do you see similar situations where speed and competition are prioritized over safety? What lessons can be learned from those situations about the challenge of prioritizing collective well-being over competitive advantage?

2. What do historical parables like Thomas Midgley Jr.’s invention of leaded gasoline or Enrico Fermi’s work on the first nuclear reactor suggest about our society’s ability to foresee and manage the long-term consequences of powerful new technologies?

3. How feasible do you believe the authors’ call for a binding international treaty to monitor all powerful data centers is in today’s geopolitical climate? Do you think countries would realistically sacrifice technological advantage for collective safety, and what do you see as the biggest obstacles to that kind of global cooperation?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. A central concept in the book is that modern AIs are “grown, not crafted.” How effective did you find this metaphor in explaining the fundamental challenge of controlling a system whose internal logic is opaque even to its creators?

2. What was the narrative purpose of including the fictional story about Sable in Part 2? How did placing this thriller-like narrative inside a work of nonfiction affect your engagement with the book’s more technical arguments?

3. How does the book use real-world figures like Sam Altman, Geoffrey Hinton, and Yann LeCun to shape its argument about AI? Which portrayal did you find most convincing or revealing, and why?

4. Did you find the book’s three-part structure, moving from technical argument to fictional illustration and finally to policy prescription, to be a persuasive way to organize its case?

5. What effect did the authors’ stark, often uncompromising language have on you as a reader? Do you feel their rhetorical style strengthened their argument by conveying urgency, or did it risk undermining their credibility?

6. What is the significance of the authors concluding their technical and political argument with two “prayers”? What tone did this ending strike for you, and what message do you think it was intended to leave with the reader?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. You are tasked with briefing a global leader on the arguments in If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. Which argument or example would you focus on first to convey the urgency of the book’s warning, and why?

2. What do you believe is the strongest counter-argument to the book’s grim forecast? If a prominent AI optimist like Yann LeCun were to write a direct response, what might that book be titled and what would its central message be?

3. Your group is creating a public awareness campaign based on one of the book’s powerful analogies, such as the “ladder in the dark” or the story of the alchemists trying to build a nuclear reactor. What slogan or key image would you choose to capture the essence of the warning?