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Humanity stands at a crossroads, facing existential threats that are no longer abstract warnings about the distant future but unfolding realities that demand immediate reflection. In a BBC interview some months ago, an interviewee whose name has slipped from memory named five such threats, prominently including climate change, nuclear war, and the rise of artificial intelligence. Of these, climate change is already exacting a brutal toll across the globe. Extreme weather events, from flash floods and tornadoes to hurricanes, have become more frequent and more ferocious, while earthquakes, landslides, and other geological disasters have swallowed whole settlements, submerged coastlines, washed away communities, displaced millions, and killed thousands, with many more simply disappearing beneath the earth, unaccounted for. People conveniently label these catastrophes “natural disasters,” attributing them to nature, but on deeper reflection it becomes clear that they are overwhelmingly man-made, the consequence of a way of life that has treated the environment, the earth, our only abode, with reckless disregard. Encompassed by the substantiality of nature, humanity must remember that we are guests on this planet, and guests are obliged to comply with the rules of the household. Disobeying these laws of nature, whether through pollution, deforestation, or the burning of fossil fuels, creates disharmony and confusion in nature itself. The resulting tumult literally comes from above our heads, in extreme weather, and underneath our feet, in earthquakes and landslides. These disasters are increasing in depth and width each passing year, and they shall eventually reach Africa, Nigeria, and every corner of this world. This is an existential threat; the question is whether humanity can retrace its steps before nature swallows us whole.
The second existential threat, the nuclear bomb, needs no elaborate explanation, for its destructive power was made tragically evident during the Second World War when an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, killing countless people within minutes. Generations later, survivors and their descendants still suffer the aftereffects of the radiation and pollutants emitted from that blast. Since then, more nations have developed and refined this dreaded weapon, making it far more sophisticated and far more terrible. The danger is self-evident: should any leader who possesses these nuclear bombs decide to deploy them, a decision that is not unlikely given the increasing acrimony, animosity, and hatred among nations, or should any such leader suddenly experience a “brainwave” that pushes him to detonate one, the resulting high-tech nuclear arsenal would wipe off a whole generation from the face of the earth. The pollution of the environment would affect every living thing for generations to come. Nuclear energy, the same source, has both good and bad uses; it can power cities or annihilate them. Yet human beings, in their intellectual sophistry and conceit, chose to turn it into a weapon of mass destruction. The same free will that allows humanity to choose beneficial paths has also allowed the construction of a bomb capable of ending civilization. If care is not taken, this high-tech nuclear bomb shall be humanity’s ruin. It is a threat not merely of immediate annihilation but of a slow, lingering contamination of earth, water, and air, poisoning life for centuries. The solemn lesson of Hiroshima is being forgotten, and the arsenal grows ever larger, ever more precise, but also ever more accessible to unstable hands. The only way to remove this existential threat is to remove the weapons themselves, not merely to manage them in times of peace while waiting for the moment of madness that could trigger apocalypse.
The third existential threat, artificial intelligence, is perhaps the most insidious because it presents itself as a tool of convenience, a facilitator of everyday life. Everything in this world has both a good and an evil use, depending on mankind’s choice in the exercise of free will. AI is undoubtedly an excellent tool, evolving daily and seemingly endless in its applications, covering virtually every aspect of human activity, from medicine to communication to commerce. But it also has a profoundly dangerous downside, one that is now causing great concern among responsible citizens. The Chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Joash Amupitan, has twice in recent times raised the alarm over misinformation arising from the use of AI, and ordinary citizens are also being fooled. The old tricks of forging a company’s letterhead and signatures are now obsolete, because AI has taken the art of passing off fabricated information to an entirely new level. A personal anecdote illustrates this clearly: an acquaintance who had not been seen in two years changed his WhatsApp profile picture, showing him cuddling a baby happily with his pregnant wife, all smiles. Out of excitement, the author phoned him to congratulate him on getting married and having a second child on the way, only to be told, with a giggle, that the photo was AI-generated. To a naïve eye, that picture looked lifelike, real; only by looking closely at details could one detect the forgery. If AI can dupe someone with a simple profile picture, think what it can do with more serious matters. This is the insidious nature of the new technology: it creates not merely falsehoods, but falsehoods that look and sound more authentic than reality itself, making it nearly impossible for ordinary people to know what to believe.
The consequences of AI-generated deception are not limited to harmless personal jokes; they are being deployed in sophisticated financial fraud that has already robbed many people of their hard-earned money. Harder to detect than a fake photograph are cases where fake news peddlers use AI tools to market “investment opportunities” to the public. The technique is simple but devastating: they employ the images and voices of successful, respected entrepreneurs to sell these fraudulent investments. Thus you have Aliko Dangote, described as Africa’s richest man; Tony Elumelu, Chairman of United Bank for Africa and Heirs Holding Africa; Femi Otedola, Chairman of First Bank; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization; and Peter Obi, trader and presidential candidate in 2023 and 2027, all speaking glowingly about an investment proposal that yields massive returns, urging prospective investors to seize the opportunity. The voices are unquestionably theirs, the lips match the words, and the faces are unmistakable; no one can fault a person who decides to invest in what such trusted economic managers are promoting. Yet those who poured their money into these schemes lost everything to dupes who had used AI to fake the entire promotion without raising suspicion. The only clue that might betray the con is the absurdly high return on investment, as much as 1000 percent profit, a figure no legitimate company could offer. But for many, the promise of sudden wealth clouds their judgment, and fraudsters, armed with the new technology, exploit this vulnerability mercilessly. These AI-driven scams are not mere annoyances; they are existential threats to the economic well-being of individuals, families, and trust itself. When even the faces of our most respected business leaders cannot be trusted, the entire foundation of commerce is undermined, leaving people vulnerable to destitution and despair.
In the realm of politics, AI has also been deployed to deceive large numbers of people, and its effects are particularly dangerous to democratic processes. Professor Amupitan’s warnings about AI-generated misinformation on the Independent National Electoral Commission are timely, because politicians are now using the technology to manipulate the electorate. At a rally of one political party, an opposing camp used AI to turn the praise songs being sung into a rejection of the candidate actually being campaigned for, and many people believed the fake video and began sharing it. AI has also been used to create entirely fake news reports. Sometime ago, a front page of a national newspaper was splashed on social media with a report to the effect that Atiku would make house rents free for Nigerians. Any right-thinking person would immediately realize that this was impossible, but many people swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker, taking it at face value without subjecting it to logic or probability. Another popular newspaper had a viral front-page headline reading: “How I was cured of my madness in church — Peter Obi.” Since many Nigerians now read digital copies online and content themselves with headlines, they are particularly vulnerable; one might say, here is the news in black and white in a popular newspaper, what more evidence does one need? Proof of its falsehood came only when the original edition was dug up from archives, revealing that the genuine front-page story had been wiped off and replaced with the fake report, and the pictures likewise superimposed, all the handiwork of AI. Even more audacious is a widely read newspaper’s front-page report claiming that “Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu Opens Up How I became a Drug Abuser and Trafficker.” Professionals immediately spotted amateurish errors in the headline, and the story’s reference to a “forthcoming June 12 election” revealed it was from the era of General Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime, a time when Bola Tinubu was not governor of Lagos State. Yet the fake news spread broadly, threatening to shape perceptions of a well-known figure.
These examples underscore that artificial intelligence, like nuclear energy, is a double-edged sword, one that can bring immense benefits but also catastrophic harm if not carefully controlled. The same free will that allowed human beings to make nuclear bombs out of nuclear energy, despite its peaceful applications, is now allowing them to use AI to spread chaos, dismantle trust, and manipulate entire populations. Climate change, nuclear weapons, and AI are not separate dangers; they are all products of a mindset that prioritizes short-term gain and intellectual arrogance over humility, responsibility, and respect for the natural order. Humanity has been warned. The BBC interviewee listed five existential threats, and the three discussed here are already knocking at our doors. The question is not whether these disasters will happen, but whether we can retrace our steps in time before they swallow us up. We are guests on earth, subject to its laws, and we have broken them. Nature is rebelling from above and below. Nuclear arsenals remain ready to vaporize civilization in an hour. And AI, the very tool we have created to make life easier, is now being used to fake reality, rob people of their savings, and undermine democracy. There is no time to lose. We must demand accountability from those who wield these powerful technologies, we must educate ourselves and others to recognize AI-generated fakes, we must recommit to living in harmony with the natural laws that govern our existence, and we must press our leaders to eliminate, rather than merely manage, the weapons of annihilation. The future of humanity depends on the choices we make today, because the perils are not hypothetical; they are existential. If we laugh off a fake photograph or dismiss a phony headline as a mere joke, we fail to see the larger pattern. The stakes are nothing less than the survival of our generation and those to come. We must act now, before the waters rise, the bombs fall, and the lies overwhelm the truth completely.