The two hottest topics in tech these days are how AI will either destroy us or empower us.

AI might kill me, but first it's going to get me a hell of a deal on a new insurance policy.

That's been the vibe in the tech world over the past few weeks. Two very different opinions about the future of AI.

In one corner are the doomers. Earlier this month, an Anthropic researcher's resignation and stark warning — that AI labs are "gambling with our lives" — kicked off a news cycle about whether AI could lead to the end of humanity. Anthropic's Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman, and xAI's Elon Musk eventually agreed that coordinating a slowdown of AI development would be in everyone's best interest.

But just as we all were pricing out our AI bunkers, along came the AI boomers. People can't stop praising the personal AI assistants they're using, most notably Instinct and Meta's Muse.

Suddenly, AI wasn't so concerning if it could get you a good deal on a Halloween costume.

Seeing two theories — AI will destroy us; AI will empower us — arise in quick succession seems odd. But it's important to understand that the messages are coming from different camps with different motivations.

It's easy to view the AI industry as a single, uniform blob, but the reality is that there are a lot of separate pieces with competing agendas.

Some of the biggest voices warning about AI's end-of-the-world risks are also the people building cutting-edge models. As I've talked about before, the timing of their calls for a slowdown is too convenient to ignore.

Anthropic and OpenAI, both prominent voices in the cautionary camp, are startups looking to make a big splash in the public markets.

For top AI companies, coordinating a slowdown offers clear advantages: a chance to shape regulation in their favor and a ready-made excuse if their models fall short of the hype.

Asking for an agreed-upon pace in the middle of a race helps those in the front way more than those in the back looking to catch up.

Those pushing AI into our personal lives aren't without their own motivations.