Bill Maher closed out Friday night’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher with a fiery “New Rules” segment that took direct aim at artificial intelligence — and the powerful figures behind it.

The comedian didn’t mince words, warning that if even the people building AI are nervous about its capabilities, it might be time to hit pause. He suggested that if those at the forefront of the technology are sounding alarms, we should “shut the whole thing down until we can figure out what the hell is going on.”

Maher kicked things off by calling out Anthropic’s new model, Claude Mythos, pointing out that a system trained to patch software vulnerabilities likely knows “how to do the hacking.”

But for Maher, the bigger concern isn’t just the tech — it’s who’s in charge. He zeroed in on industry heavyweights like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, joking that trusting them with sensitive data feels like a gamble.

“That’s the other scary thing about AI, the people who run it — i.e. the people who run the world,” Maher noted. “And it’s like five guys, who, between them, working as a team, couldn’t correctly read a social cue.”

He continued: “I wouldn’t let these guys around a mixed drink, let alone my personal data.”

As the segment ramped up, Maher leaned fully into his skepticism, declaring that “we’re letting a handful of hoodie wearing, on the spectrum sociopaths, practically robots themselves, roll the dice on species extinction.”

“You see an out of control robot and you run,” he added. “Mark Zuckerberg sees one and thinks, ‘Dad?’”

Maher also pointed out that some of the loudest warnings about AI have come from inside the house. He referenced past comments from Altman and Geoffrey Hinton — often dubbed the “Godfather of AI” — about the risks of the rapidly advancing technology.

“We’re f–king around with a 20% chance of extinction. 20% — wasn’t that about the odds for Trump beating Hillary [Clinton] in 2016?” Maher said, before quoting Musk: “‘I am very close to the cutting edge in AI,’ he said, ‘and it scares the hell out of me.’”

He added that Musk has warned reactive regulation could come “too late,” calling AI “a fundamental existential risk for human civilization.”

“AI programs are geniuses, but they’re also psychopaths,” Maher argued. “In war games, they choose the nuclear option far more than humans do. Because they can only calculate. They have no humanity, the have no conscience. They don’t have that thing that gives human beings pause.”

Maher isn’t the only Hollywood voice raising concerns. Both Scarlett Johansson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have spoken out about the risks tied to artificial intelligence.

Back in October, Gordon-Levitt called for a halt to AI super-intelligence development until stronger safety measures are in place.

“Why would you want to build an AI that’s smarter than humans?” he said in a video posted to X at the time. “You could say AI is going to cure diseases or AI is going to help strengthen our national security, and, yeah, I want those things, too. But why couldn’t we just build an AI tool to help cure diseases or build an AI tool to help with national security? Why does it have to all be one big product that does everything?”

Meanwhile, Johansson pushed for legislative action after a viral video used her likeness without consent earlier this year.

“I urge the U.S. government to make the passing of legislation limiting AI use a top priority,” she said. “It is a bipartisan issue that enormously affects the immediate future of humanity at large.”

Both actors were also among nearly 800 signatories backing the anti-AI campaign “Stealing Isn’t Innovation.”

New episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher air Fridays on HBO.