A grim claim from a self-described time traveler about a future war between humans and robots has begun circulating again, as fresh warnings from artificial intelligence experts fuel public anxiety over the technology’s rapid rise.
The man, who gave only the name “Mike,” alleged that he had come back from September 20, 3700 — a date he described as the moment AI-powered robots launched a catastrophic assault on the human race.
“The war between the human race and artificial creations, the robots who had artificial intelligence, once they understood their power, they understood their dominance above humans and rose above them,” Mike said. “They were slaves but became the leaders.”
In his account of the supposed AI uprising, Mike claimed that more than 30 percent of humanity would be wiped out.
The unsettling prediction first emerged years before Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher, warned this week that the “dangerous technology” could pose an existential threat to humanity as early as 2030.
Coxon, who previously worked at the AI company behind Claude and also spent time at OpenAI, argued that while humanity has developed systems to manage nuclear weapons, it still lacks a reliable way to control advanced artificial intelligence — computer models increasingly capable of learning and reasoning in human-like ways.
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt,” Coxon wrote in a stark post on X.
A day after his warning, Anthropic disclosed that it had disrupted several suspected attempts to use the company’s AI tools in the development of biological weapons.
During an 11-minute, 42-second interview with the YouTube channel ApexTV, Mike held up what looked like a mechanical arm, claiming it had belonged to a robot he personally killed
Jacob Coxon, a former researcher at OpenAI and Anthropic — the companies behind ChatGPT and Claude — appeared with Fox News host Bret Baier to discuss what he described as AI’s potentially deadly risks
Mike’s warning was published in November 2018 in a video filmed at an undisclosed location. He appeared in a plaid shirt, with his face blurred and his voice digitally altered.
He further alleged that by the year 3000, robots had already taken over many jobs and roles once performed by humans across society.
Centuries later, Mike alleged that those machines eventually launched a coordinated assault through the internet and wireless systems. He added that humans only survived the onslaught because the AI-powered robots could not obtain nuclear launch codes.
During the 11-minute, 42-second interview with YouTube Channel ApexTV, Mike also held up what appeared to be a mechanical arm, which he alleged came from a robot he had killed himself.
‘You can see it’s not as big as you might imagine, but believe me, there is so much powering this little hand that it can divide you into a hundred pieces,’ the self-proclaimed time traveler claimed.
Mike’s 2018 claims about an AI attack starting on the internet have also drawn an eerie parallel to the July revelation that a rogue AI program has already been able to break free of its human testers and attack another computer network.
ChatGPT creator OpenAI admitted it was testing a new program designed to perform complex hacking and cybersecurity tasks in a supposedly secure environment not connected to the public internet.
However, the program exploited an undiscovered weak point in the company’s system, spreading itself onto the net, breaking into internal systems of Hugging Face, which hosts large language models and AI datasets, and stealing secret login details.
After the rogue AI incident, DigitalWarfare.com’s James Knight told Our News Outlet that the growing threat from AI could soon devastate a nation in a single day – simultaneously breaking into thousands of corporate and government networks, stealing sensitive data and paralyzing vital systems with ransomware.
‘Human-speed defense against machine-speed offense is not a fair contest,’ Knight warned.
As for the alleged warning from 3700, Mike claimed he was part of a group that would travel to random years into the future, with a goal of reaching the 38th century.
By the fourth millennium, he said humanity had undergone a dramatic transformation, with robots and artificial intelligence taking over nearly every aspect of society.
Humans were left to focus solely on creative pursuits, though the planet’s population had dwindled significantly.
Humanity had allegedly shrunk to just three billion people, while the number of robots had skyrocketed to around four million, with some designed to look exactly like humans.
‘They were walking in cafes, restaurants, hotels and shops,’ Mike said in the video, which has been viewed more than 1.2 million times. ‘They also worked as consultants for businessmen and companies.’
He then claimed military robots of the future were built very differently from those used by ordinary citizens, describing them as stronger, more heavily armed and the ultimate ‘killing machines.’
Everyday robots were known as ‘Fox’ units. According to his account, they were simple machines designed to perform hard labor and bore little resemblance to humans, lacking human-like faces and bodies.
Instead, the robots were equipped with large, powerful hands and could be mass-produced with remarkable speed.
The ‘time traveler’ then said the robots aimed to destroy the human race, claiming he participated in a series of dangerous missions alongside civilians who had formed their own special forces to fight the robots.
According to Mike’s account, these resistance groups were aware that he and others had traveled from the past and understood both their purpose and the information they were seeking.
He said people from the past and future shared a single goal: preventing an apocalyptic war between humanity and artificial intelligence.
Coxon’s comments went viral, attracting more than 100 million views, and have prompted fresh scrutiny of an industry that has already attracted enormous amounts of investor money
Mike then showed what appeared to be a mechanical hand with two pincers attached to a robotic arm, claiming it came from a Fox robot he destroyed.
According to his account, the war between humans and machines was deeply one-sided.
‘The war between humans and robots was very unequal,’ he said, claiming the machines possessed advanced weaponry while humans had access only to laser guns.
To avoid detection, human survivors allegedly hid in forests and caves because the robots primarily tracked humans using signals transmitted from space. However, Mike claimed the machines eventually adapted their tactics.
‘The robots soon realized that they could just burn the forests to deprive people of their only shelter,’ he said.
The alleged traveler claimed the robots’ ultimate goal was to create ‘a new empire’ free of all life on Earth.
‘They had a dream to make this planet a place without humans, animals, plants and any organic creature,’ he said.
On Tuesday, Coxon explained why he had just resigned from Anthropic, alleging that neither his former employer nor OpenAI were ‘acting responsibly’ in regard to the development of AI.
Coxon’s warning was also echoed by Evan Hubinger, a researcher currently employed at Anthropic.
‘Jacob is correct here – we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans,’ Hubinger wrote on X on Tuesday.
