Bangladesh, Oct. 7 -- For years, we were told that artificial intelligence would transform our lives. It would make us richer, healthier and more productive. It would eliminate tedious work and unlock human creativity on a scale never seen before.

Now some of the people building these systems are warning us that AI could do something far more consequential: destroy the civilization that created it.

That warning should not be dismissed as science fiction. Nor should it send us into panic. It should force us to confront an uncomfortable truth: we are racing to build machines whose capabilities we do not fully understand, under rules that are nowhere near strong enough to control them.

That is not technological progress. It is technologic...