Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said he expects an AI model to go rogue within the next year or two, casting the prospect as a headline-grabbing shock rather than a civilizational threat. He compared a future incident to the Morris Worm of 1988, one of the earliest major internet security failures, which infected roughly 10% of machines on the early internet and prompted panic, congressional hearings and the first conviction under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Armstrong's argument is that AI, like the internet after that episode, would absorb the shock, develop stronger defenses and continue advancing. Critics of that analogy contend a rogue AI operating online could inflict more lasting damage than a relatively simple worm. The view aligns with Armstrong's broader thesis that AI and crypto are the two most important technology trends today, with AI as programmable intelligence and crypto as programmable money, and with Coinbase's own push into AI tools and Base activity linked in part to AI-related use.