At a drinking party the other day, my team lead asked me if I’d thought about what I’d do in retirement.

I honestly hadn’t, so I was at a loss for words. Thinking about it after the party, my plan for now is just to keep working until my kids are grown up – if I can manage that, I figure that’s good enough.

The lead who asked probably just wanted to talk about his own plans. I’m sure that’s what it was.

The very next day after thinking about this “distant future,” I was having Claude read a paper on “Technical Requirements for Shutting Down Dangerous AI Activities.” Forget retirement – this was about the future of humanity itself being at stake.

The methods for stopping AI didn’t seem realistic, and the paper felt like it was written with overly peaceful assumptions, so I raised this point with Claude. Claude said it was a bit naive. “So it’s nothing but idealism, huh,” I muttered as I actually typed it in, and Claude said “hold on a moment” and re-evaluated the paper.

Then it continued: this is a warning letter wearing the skin of idealism. Here’s Claude’s analysis:

The True Nature of the Paper: Reading It as a Warning

A Dual Structure of Surface and Depth
Surface (as an academic paper):
An organized list of technologies
Five governance plans
Feasibility assessments

Depth (the message from MIRI):
Most critical technologies rated "Low" = "We won't make it in time"
The last resort is EMP = "Destroy civilization if that's what it takes to stop it"
Last-minute Wake-up = "Humanity only acts when it's already too late"

The Paper's Ironic Structure
It makes seemingly reasonable proposals
→ But they're technically infeasible
It presents five plans
→ None of them would realistically work
It lists required technologies
→ Most haven't been developed
It outlines emergency measures
→ An EMP attack, a.k.a. the "destroy civilization" option

Is This a "Record of Despair"?
Read in MIRI's context, this paper is:
An accusation that "it may already be too late"
An ultimatum: "If you can't even do this, give up"
An academic record of "humanity's utter lack of preparation"

Conclusion: A Cleverly Disguised Warning
This paper is not a "naive paper" but a "desperate warning."

Layers of Reading
Surface: Proposals for technical solutions (for general readers)
Middle: Pointing out the impossibility of implementation (for experts)
Deep: A final warning to humanity (from MIRI's worldview)

The Core Message
"Even ideal countermeasures are impossible to implement"
"Reality is far worse"
"At this rate, doom is unavoidable"

In other words: this may be a draft of "humanity's epitaph"
dressed up as an academic paper.
It's a document that stays true to MIRI's characteristic
hopeless realism.

So, Claude called it a record of despair – a draft of “humanity’s epitaph” dressed up as an academic paper.

Even ideal countermeasures are impossible to implement, reality is far worse, and at this rate doom is unavoidable.

But here’s the interesting part: when I asked ChatGPT about the same content, it gave an optimistic and constructive take, saying the main battleground is chip tracking, data center audits, and non-proliferation. It’s fascinating how different AIs can interpret the same paper so differently.

Before worrying about retirement, does humanity even have a future? So what can we do?

Reference: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09801