Nostradamus has made a number of predictions which believers think have come true, and now fears are growing that the legendary psychic may have forecast the coming apocalypse
Fears are growing over a terrifying Nostradamus prediction after a top researcher warned AI could wipe out humanity in the next decade.
Jacob Coxon, who announced his resignation from Anthropic, the company behind Claude, warned that people working on artificial intelligence are “genuinely frightened” about the speed of its advancements. He told the BBC: “I believe that if we don’t slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future.”
With this worrying statement in mind, people are turning to a 500-year-old prediction made by the legendary psychic Nostradamus. The French astrologer, who lived in the 16th century, has been credited with forecasting some of the biggest events in human history, including the 9/11 attacks, JFK’s assassinations, the Great Fire of London and the rise of Hitler.
With fears growing over the potential risks of AI to the human race, eagle-eyed readers think one of Nostradamus’ passages hints at the coming apocalypse.
As with any Nostradamus prediction, they are very much open to interpretation given the vague language the Frenchman used.
In a passage labeled Century IV, Quatrain 31 in his 1555 book Les Propheties, he wrote: “The Moon in the full of night over the high mountain, the new sage with a lone brain sees it: By his disciples invited to be immortal, eyes to the south. Hands in bosoms, bodies in the fire.”
To break this down, readers reckon ‘lone brain,’ ‘immortal’ and ‘disciples’ to mean some kind of computer or machine intelligence. Meanwhile, ‘the new sage’ is interpreted as technology.
Evan Hubinger, who also works for Anthropic, backed up Jacob Coxon by suggesting that there is a greater than 10% chance AI “could kill all humans” within the next decade.
Many experts have not expanded on exactly how AI could wipe out humanity. But Des Browne, former UK defence secretary, warned that a super-intelligent AI poses a threat “on the same, possibly a greater scale” than nuclear weapons.
Nostradamus has made a number of vague predictions that readers have interpreted as coming true. Believers point to the Century 6, Quatrain 97 to argue that he foresaw the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The verse reads: “The sky will burn at forty-five degrees. Fire approached the great new city. Immediately a huge scattered flame leaps up.” Followers argue the ‘great new city’ refers to New York, while the ‘forty-five degrees’ line apparently refers to the latitude of New York, or the angle of the plane striking the Twin Towers.
With regards to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, enthusiasts point to Century 1, Quatrain 26. It reads: “The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt. An evil deed foretold by the bearer of a petition. According to the prediction, another falls at night time.”
According to the interpretation, ‘the great man’ refers to JFK, while the ‘thunderbolt’ is the sniper’s bullet which struck him down. The ‘other’ who falls at night is interpreted as JFK’s killer Lee Harvey Oswald, who was himself killed soon afterwards, or JFK’s brother Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated five years later.