Saturday, 24 October 2026Independent · Nonpartisan · SourcedExistential.nz
The Weekly Existential

Sober reporting on the risks to humanity's future

Artificial intelligence · This week

Black October: AI finds the bugs, and the web scrambles

AI-assisted researchers found two critical flaws in PHP, the language behind most websites. The details leaked a day early, governments took sites offline, and exploit attempts ran into the millions. Confirmed compromises so far: none tied to the flaws themselves.

Nuclear weapons · Analysis
Line chart of a modelled nuclear risk index from 1945 to 2026: a peak of 91 in 1962, 55 in 1983, a low of about 2 in the mid-1990s, and 57 in 2026.

The Long Retreat from the Brink, and the Turn Back

New START has lapsed, leaving the two largest arsenals unconstrained for the first time in half a century. A modelled index of nuclear risk now stands where it did in 1983.

Nuclear weapons

All nuclear →
Nuclear · Acute

China's arsenal steps into the open

State TV acknowledges the silo fields, a submarine missile flies into the South Pacific, and "strategic stability" goes undefined.

Climate change

All climate →
Climate · Chronic

One point five, and counting

September ran 1.63°C above pre-industrial and a strong El Niño is building. The numbers, and how little the policy trajectory has moved.

AI · Governance

The backlash against the AI build-out

$130 billion of US data-centre projects blocked or delayed in a single quarter. Power bills, water and land have made AI infrastructure an election issue.