SNL parodies Anthropic's Amodei over AI‑doom warnings

Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update aired a sketch mocking Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei's recent warnings that artificial intelligence could destroy humanity, TechCrunch reported. Cast member Jane Wickline played Amodei in a wig, delivering halting, awkward answers to host Michael Che during the Sept. 26 broadcast.

The sketch has Wickline's Amodei call artificial intelligence "the devil" and himself "its maker," before insisting it is "not a weapon" but rather "a tool for building weapons," TechCrunch reported. At one point the character breaks into a Gollum-style exchange with a darker side of itself, the outlet said.

The bit also has the fictional Amodei predict a rosy future for cancer treatment, putting the odds at "about a 10% chance" within a decade. He also tells viewers, in the bit, that AI executives "do not condone" what the industry is doing, according to TechCrunch. No other outlet had reported on the sketch as of Sunday, the outlet said.

Amodei has spent recent weeks warning that frontier AI systems could pose catastrophic risks. Those comments have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers, and now from comedy writers too. Neither Anthropic nor NBC issued a statement on the sketch, TechCrunch said.