SNL Spoofs Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Over AI Doom Warnings

Saturday Night Live targeted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and the AI industry’s warnings about catastrophic risks in its latest Weekend Update segment.

Cast member Jane Wickline played Amodei after host Michael Che introduced the segment by citing recent warnings from the Anthropic chief and a former employee about the potential dangers of advanced AI.

Wickline’s impression leaned heavily into Amodei’s public caution about the technology, delivering hesitant answers and occasionally slipping into Gollum-style exchanges with a darker version of the character.

SNL turns AI risk warnings into satire

At one point, the fictional Amodei declared, “AI is the devil and I its maker,” before joking that AI executives “do not condone what we are doing.”

The sketch also mocked the industry’s habit of pairing existential-risk warnings with ambitious claims about AI’s potential benefits. Wickline’s character described AI as “not a weapon” but “a tool for building weapons,” while also parodying claims that the technology could help cure major diseases.

The segment arrives as Amodei and other AI executives continue to publicly discuss both the potential benefits and severe risks of increasingly capable AI systems.