Yet when it comes to AI, I have found the evolution of this carefully staged exercise in scaremongering different in some respects. For a start, this is clearly a top-down campaign, orchestrated by industry insiders. Indeed, as far back as 12 years ago, those in the know began to raise the alarm about AI. In 2014, Elon Musk told his followers on Twitter that AI is potentially ‘more dangerous than nukes’. Bill Gates informed millions of his followers on Reddit that ‘I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned’. Needless to say, these fears did not stop either of them from pursuing the development of AI.
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Samizdata quote of the day – Don’t succumb to the great AI panicSeptember 19th, 2026 |
 2 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Don’t succumb to the great AI panicLeave a Reply |
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Listen to what the scaremongers say, but also watch what they do.
Have the CCP slowed their development of AI? I doubt it.
Have the tech billionaires who undoubtedly have significant voting shares in large AI companies, used that power to slow things down? I doubt it–that would cost them money which is even scarier to them than the end of humanity.
Here is an analogy to consider. Imagine it is 1950, we all recognize that the atomic bomb could wipe out humanity, and we were frightened with the Soviet Union detonated its first bomb. Imagine if we considered the solution to be stopping further research into atomic weapons in the United States, knowing full well that the USSR would continue doing so. Does that make any sense? Of course not. But that is exactly what idiots like Bernie Sanders are suggesting.
Just as with nuclear weapons, the solution to AI safety is simply more AI to protect against these dangers. Musk has suggested the only practical solution which is to have AI companies safety test each others work. This I think we could get China on board with.
Let me explain what a government agency to manage this would look like. Right now AI has developed full self driving capabilities. They are an order of magnitude safer than the average human driver. The well established government agencies who dictate highway safety are actively delaying the introduction of these technologies for safety reasons. This is truly insane. If FSD technology was widely deployed in the United States it would save at least 30,000 people from road traffic deaths. But better 30,000 people continue to die than one person dies in a way that can be attributed to a government bureaucrat’s decision.
Right now AI is transforming the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. Are we to delay all these treatments in name of the precautionary principle? How many people will die because medical care was delayed to protect them? I take this personally since I am getting closer to the age where health concerns start catching up with you. Although I am fortunately healthy right now, I know what old age looks like. So, trying to delay these treatments, interfering with their development is, in my opinion, nothing short of threatening my with disease and mortality.
FWIW, this famous Hugging Face incident has been massively misreported as if some group of rogue AI agents developed consciousness and evil intent and went off to destroy the world. In fact what happened is a bunch of AI agents DID WHAT THEY WERE TOLD TO DO, and they did so in an environment where OpenAI DELIBERATELY turned the security protocols almost completely off.
I spend most of my day talking to AIs, they do not have malicious intent, they don’t really have any intent except to do what you tell them to do as best they can. AI safety is all about making sure we tell it what to do and what not to do, and far and away the best way to do that is to have other AIs monitor and address that risk. The last thing we want to do is hinder its progress in the United States and turn it all over to China. That would be a disaster of horrific proportions. The fact that it is almost impossible to build new power stations in the USA is already putting us at a great disadvantage, and it is only China’s lack of access to TMSC advanced chips that is holding them back. I assure you, they are not doing any AI pauses, there is no groundswell of anti AI sentiment in China.
We have the opportunity to keep the west at the frontier of this industrial revolution, but it changes so fast even a small delay will put us way behind.
I think Eric Raymond has a great point here, if you actually believe what the doomers are saying: