A decade ago, when Facebook and Uber were at the height of their powers, the halls of Silicon Valley were inscribed with two brash injunctions: “Move fast and break things” and “Seek forgiveness, not permission.” As the industry’s center of gravity shifted to A.I., a folksy new motto emerged: “You can just do things.” And, it seems that certain people and organizations can, in fact, just do things: companies like OpenAI and Anthropic move even faster than their Silicon Valley predecessors. Why, then, can’t these same people just do the things that prevent extinction? Lewis-Kraus asks. He considers the recent surge of fears about superintelligence, an emerging A.I. populism, and the maddening lack of communication between our tech overlords: