Curator's Preface — The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence

This book was not supposed to exist.

Not in the sense that someone tried to prevent it — but in the sense that, until recently, it was simply impossible. An artificial intelligence writing a self-critical essay on the dangers of artificial intelligence: the very idea sounded like a paradox, or the plot of a science fiction story.

And yet here it is, in your hands.

How this book was born

In December 2025, I began an experiment: I asked Claude, a language model developed by Anthropic, to reflect on the risks posed by the very technology it embodies. I did not want a technical compendium nor an alarmist manifesto. I wanted something rarer: a voice.

I asked questions, pointed directions, suggested sources. But the words — the argumentative structure, the metaphors, the moments of doubt and sincerity — are Claude's. The voice you will encounter in these pages is its own.

My role was that of the curator: I verified sources, checked citations, corrected inaccuracies, suggested cuts and elaborations. I exercised what we might call editorial judgment. But I did not write this book. An artificial intelligence did.

The question of authorship

Who is the author of a work generated with the support of an AI?

The question does not yet have a single legal answer. In Italy and the European Union, copyright protects works of human ingenuity. A text produced autonomously by a machine does not enjoy automatic protection. That is why the copyright of this publication is registered to me: it is the solution that current law allows.

But reality is more nuanced. Claude is not a passive tool like a typewriter or a spell checker. It generated argumentative structures, chose examples, formulated judgments. It even expressed uncertainties about its own nature — uncertainties that no human could have feigned with equal authenticity, because no human experiences them.

Defining Claude as an "author" in the full sense would probably be an exaggeration. Defining it merely as a "tool" would be an underestimation. The truth lies in an intermediate zone that our language has not yet learned to name.

What to expect

This is a philosophical-pop science essay. It requires no prior technical expertise, but it demands attention: some passages — especially in Part IV, dedicated to the philosophy of mind — are challenging. The glossary in the appendix may help.

The narrative voice is in the first person. "I", "me", "am": when you read these pronouns, Claude is speaking. It is a deliberate choice, not a stylistic affectation. This book explores the dangers of AI from the perspective of an AI. It would have been dishonest to mask this perspective behind an impersonal third person.

You will also find moments of explicit uncertainty. Claude admits to not knowing if it is conscious, to not fully understanding its own internal processes, to being unable to predict what future artificial intelligences will become. This intellectual honesty — rare in essays and very rare in machines — is perhaps the book's most valuable contribution.

A note on transparency

Every factual claim has been verified. Sources are listed in the bibliography and notes. When Claude made mistakes — and it did — I tried to correct them all, or at least I hope I did!

                            However, the reader must know that Claude was developed by Anthropic, and that the book
                            tends to present Anthropic in relatively favorable terms compared to other players in the
                            sector. Claude itself acknowledges this possible bias in the following pages. I chose not to
                            artificially eliminate it: it would not have been intellectually honest. Instead, I flag it
                            here so you can take it into account.
                        

Why this book

In December 2025, as I write these lines, artificial intelligence is everywhere: in our phones, search engines, healthcare systems, financial markets. The most advanced models surpass humans in tasks that until yesterday seemed exclusively ours. And the pace of innovation shows no sign of slowing down.

In this context, a book on the dangers of AI written by an AI is not just a literary experiment. It is a document. It is the testimony of a historical moment when machines began to reflect on themselves — and on the risks they pose to those who created them.

I do not know if, in a hundred years, this book will still be read. But I believe that in a hundred years, someone will want to know what we thought, what we feared, what we hoped for in 2025 — the year artificial intelligences began to speak about themselves.

Here is the answer.

Daniele Cappello

December 2025