Artificial Intelligence: The Promise And Peril
Time Magazine named author and filmmaker James Barrat one of "5 Very Smart People Who Think Artificial Intelligence Could Bring the Apocalypse" — a nod to his groundbreaking bestseller Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era. Barrat’s new book, The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything, explores fresh dangers posed by the latest AI trend: generative AI. Some of these risks have even been linked to real-world tragedies like suicides and murder - perils you won’t hear Big Tech companies like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, or Meta openly discuss.
As seen on:
a few of my favorite appearances
Podcast Interviews
AI & the future of humanity | James Barrat at Solstice FWD 2018
Is Artificial Intelligence the End of the Human Era? | James Barrat
Keynote Speaker - Can We Coexist with Superintelligent Machines - James Barrat
Will Artificial Intelligence Bring An End To Humanity? | James Barrat
James Barrat - Our Final Invention Revisited
Promises & Perils of A.I. with James Barrat
AI Apocalypse James Barrat
value for your audience
Things I love to talk about...
I’m an author, researcher, and science communicator focused on the intersection of technology, ethics, and public awareness. I help people understand how complex systems like AI really work, and where they break. My work centers on cutting through hype, confronting hard truths, and asking the questions others won’t. From artificial intelligence to suicide prevention, I speak on the most urgent risks we face as a society, and how clarity, communication, and accountability can shift outcomes before it's too late.
The Intelligence Explosion: What happens when machines become smarter than humans, and why we may already be on that path.
The Illusion of Control: Why we don’t understand the systems we’re building, and how that’s the most dangerous problem of all.
Truth Over Hype: Debunking the three biggest lies Silicon Valley tells about AI risk, regulation, and inevitability.
Accountability in an Unregulated Race: How governments, media, and citizens are being left behind in the rush to artificial general intelligence.
Ethics, Power, and Secrecy: Why the people building AI have no incentive to tell the truth, and what that means for the rest of us.
Public Understanding as a Safety Mechanism: Why the public must get smarter about AI, fast, and how awareness itself can slow down reckless development.
Science Communication in the Age of AGI: How to explain complex technologies to non-experts, and why clarity matters more than ever.
Human Futures and Moral Urgency: What AI means for human survival and mental health; how technology is reshaping not only our future, but our sense of purpose, agency, and connection.
The Hidden Link Between Technology and Suicide: Every year, suicide takes more lives in the U.S. than car accidents or homicides. I break down real solutions, from military models to national strategies, that have been proven to save lives. The crisis is real, but so is the hope.
LEarn about my books
The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything
"A fast-paced exploration of the volatile issues raised by generative AI, by the author of Our Final Invention."
With the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence, both existential fears and uncritical enthusiasm for AI systems have surged. In this era of unprecedented technological growth, understanding the profound impacts of AI — both positive and negative — is more crucial than ever.
In The Intelligence Explosion, James Barrat, a leading technology expert, equips readers with the tools to navigate the complex and often chaotic landscape of modern AI. This compelling book dives deep into the challenges posed by generative AI, exposing how tech companies have built systems that are both error-prone and impossible to fully interpret.
Through insightful interviews with AI pioneers, Barrat highlights the unstable trajectory of AI development, showcasing its potential for modest benefits and catastrophic consequences. Bold, eye-opening, and essential, The Intelligence Explosion is a must-read for anyone grappling with the realities of the technological revolution.
Facing Suicide: Understanding Why People Kill Themselves and How We Can Stop Them
A deep dive into a national catastrophe that examines how and why suicide happens so that we can prevent it
Suicide has reached epidemic proportions in America, claiming over 45,000 lives each year—more than car accidents or homicides. For every person who dies there are about 10 unsuccessful attempts. Yet suicides are preventable, if we can grasp the complex factors behind it and look out for suicide’s signs in our families, communities, and colleagues. In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed journalist James Barrat delivers these insights with a deep dive into America’s suicide crisis.
With profiles of survivors and their families, and interviews with experts, Barrat assembles a thorough, nuanced portrait of this confounding killer. He examines suicide’s many risk factors, including genetics, substance abuse, access to lethal means, and mental health. Importantly, he explores how societal issues like racial trauma, bullying, and financial stress – in combination with other factors - can push people to kill themselves. Barrat reveals the structural and chemical differences found in suicidal brains, providing biological insights.
Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era
With the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence, both existential fears and uncritical enthusiasm for AI systems have surged. In this era of unprecedented technological growth, understanding the profound impacts of AI — both positive and negative — is more crucial than ever.
In The Intelligence Explosion, James Barrat, a leading technology expert, equips readers with the tools to navigate the complex and often chaotic landscape of modern AI. This compelling book dives deep into the challenges posed by generative AI, exposing how tech companies have built systems that are both error-prone and impossible to fully interpret.
Through insightful interviews with AI pioneers, Barrat highlights the unstable trajectory of AI development, showcasing its potential for modest benefits and catastrophic consequences. Bold, eye-opening, and essential, The Intelligence Explosion is a must-read for anyone grappling with the realities of the technological revolution.
Real people. real results.
What others say about me
"AGI maybe years or even decades (and not just months) away, but James Barrat is right; we are not prepared … The time to act is now."
“James Barrat was a wonderful campus guest and the perfect keynote speaker to launch our School of Business Center for Innovation and Ethics. He visited classes and engaged students in deep discussions throughout the day. In the evening, he spoke eloquently to the college community and the public about the ethical challenges of AI. Equal parts talk and conversation, the evening was compelling, and struck just the right balance between the technical and the human challenges we face.”
“James Barrat gave an inspiring and compelling presentation on one of the most significant ethical issues of our time. His talk was exceedingly well received by students, faculty, and members of the wider Richmond region.”
“James Barrat held a deeply knowledgeable Purdue audience in rapt attention during a compelling but also entertaining hour presentation on our campus. It’s safe to assume that he will have at least as powerful an impact on listeners hearing about the risks and possibly existential dangers of AI for the first time.”
“James Barrat’s broad cultural fluency and acute sense of humor combine for an invitingly personal and accessible take on the subject of artificial intelligence. He presents technologically and philosophically complex topics with popular attraction as well as intellectual appeal.”
"James Barrat pulls no punches in his powerful new book. He deftly explores the many perspectives on the AI tsunami about to crash into humanity."
"People in AI or AGI labs understand that they are putting the rest of society at risk, yet the rest of society doesn’t realize what is going on. Barrat’s work is important to help address this great disequilibrium."
"This riveting page-turner by a seasoned tech journalist is packed with exclusive behind-the-scenes insights, and masterfully elucidates the double-edged potential of humanity’s greatest gamble."
"A gripping, unsettling critique of artificial intelligence carries a stark warning: control or be controlled."
areas of expertise
Artificial Intelligence & Existential Risk
I investigate the accelerating trajectory toward artificial general intelligence, exposing both the scientific realities and the societal risks of creating systems that could quickly surpass human intelligence. My work challenges the illusion of control that Silicon Valley promotes, showing how emergent behaviors and unpredictable outcomes could escalate into existential threats.
This isn’t about science fiction, it’s about understanding the very real dangers of a technology that could outgrow our ability to manage it. By unpacking what’s already happening in labs and corporations, I reveal how close we may be to losing control, and why this conversation can no longer be ignored.
AI Ethics & Public Accountability
I examine the moral failures of unregulated AI development and the dangerous power imbalance between Big Tech and the public. By revealing how profit motives and secrecy drive AI forward faster than safety or ethics, I expose the incentives behind the race toward artificial general intelligence.
I push for oversight that puts truth and transparency at the center of the conversation. My perspective emphasizes that accountability isn’t optional, it’s the only path to preventing catastrophic misuse of machine intelligence.
Public Understanding & Suicide Prevention
I translate the most complex and sensitive realities of suicide, its psychological, biological, and social roots, into clear, actionable understanding. My work brings together the latest research, survivor stories, and proven prevention models to make this crisis something we can all confront and change.
Through books, documentaries, and public talks, I help audiences see that suicide is not inevitable, it’s preventable. I challenge silence, expose misinformation, and equip individuals, institutions, and communities with the knowledge to intervene and save lives. My goal is to make truth a tool of prevention, because understanding how suicide happens is the first step to stopping it.
question ideas to ask James
Tap Into My Expertise
What is the “Intelligence Explosion”and why should the public be paying attention to it right now?
In your view, why is artificial general intelligence more dangerous than nuclear weapons or climate change?
What do most technologists still misunderstand, or ignore, about AI risk?
What are the biggest lies or myths the public is being told about AI?
Why don’t we understand how large AI systems like ChatGPT really work, and what are the risks of that ignorance?
If you could sit down with global policymakers today, what would you tell them about the need for AI regulation?
What role does public awareness play in slowing down or changing the course of AI development?
What keeps you up at night about the future of AI, and what gives you hope, if anything?
about me
Meet James Barrat
For over two decades, award-winning filmmaker James Barrat has produced and directed documentary films for National Geographic, Discovery, PBS, and many other broadcasters in the U.S. and Europe. Barrat’s films cut across cultures and epochs to tell deeply human narratives of history, archeology, science, and adventure. Barrat has occasionally filled roles as Executive Producer, but has focused on making films and authoring books.
Recently for PBS Barrat wrote and directed Facing Suicide, a penetrating exploration of the neurological, social, and substance-abuse factors that compel people to take their own lives. He took an 18-month hiatus from filmmaking to write the companion book Facing Suicide: Understanding Why People Kill Themselves and How We Can Stop Them.
In 2017 Barrat wrote and directed Spillover: Zika, Ebola, and Beyond, an investigation of diseases that spread from animal to human. Because of its relevance to the COVID-19
pandemic, PBS re-aired Spillover several times. A recent NGT/PBS special, Rise of the Black Pharaohs, aired to stellar ratings in October 2014. The film explores Sudan’s Kush kingdom, which invaded Egypt around 700 BC and reigned as the 28th Dynasty for 100 years.
Early in his career, Barrat scripted many episodes of National Geographic Television’s award-winning Explorer series, including the groundbreaking Who Built the Pyramids? which celebrated the monuments of the Giza Plateau and the work of Egyptologists Zahi Hawass and Mark Lerner. Barrat went on to produce films for the NGC’s Treasure Seekers, Out There, and Taboo series. In 2004 Barrat created the pilot for History Channel’s #1-rated original series Digging for the Truth. His high-rating film, Lost Treasures of Afghanistan, created for National Geographic Television Specials, aired on PBS in the spring of 2005. The Gospel of Judas, which he produced and directed, set ratings records for NGC and NGCI when it aired in April 2006. Another NGT Special, the 2007 Inside Jerusalem’s Holiest, features unprecedented access to the Muslim Noble Sanctuary and the Dome of the Rock. In 2008 Barrat returned to Israel to create the NGT Special Herod’s Lost Tomb. In 2010 he produced Extreme Cave Diving, an NGT/NOVA special about the science of the Bahamas Blue Holes, and Natural Born Killers, a special for the Discovery Channel about the evolutionary roots of homicide.
Barrat took a hiatus from filmmaking to author a bestselling nonfiction book about the risks of advanced Artificial Intelligence, entitled, Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era. For the bestseller, Barrat was named by Time Magazine as one of “Five Very Smart People Who Think Artificial Intelligence could bring the Apocalypse.” His second book about AI, The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything, will be released by St. Martin’s Press in September 2025. In 2023 Penguin Random House released his nonfiction book, Facing Suicide: Why People Kill Themselves and How We Can Stop them. An accompanying film with the title Facing Suicide is frequently aired on PBS and streams constantly.
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The Promise And Peril
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