AI leaders sign a letter begging humanity to save the world from…themselves
Make no mistake, artificial intelligence poses serious threats to society from misinformation, algorithmic bias, unemployment, and a long list of other unpleasantries. It’s also theoretically possible that the tech industry will make an AI so intelligent that it poses an existential threat to our society.
That final concern is the one the AI business wants you to focus on, in part because it’s worth considering, and also because if we spend all our time thinking about hypothetical future problems, we won’t spend as much time focused on the real problems AI is already causing.
In May, over 350 AI executives, researchers, and industry leaders signed a one-sentence open letter pleading with society to stop their technology from destroying the world: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” In other words, it was a bunch of millionaires wringing their hands about how scared they are of what they’re building but they’ll keep on building it—an outstandingly dumb example of grandstanding in an already stupid year.
