I & I Editorial BoardAnyone who has ever worked in public relations knows that there are no accidents. When a story suddenly becomes a hot topic, it’s because someone or some organization is behind it. Which is why the sudden, across-the-board panic over AI can’t be organic.
Last week, a 27-year-old former researcher at Anthropic started posting about how AI would be the end of humanity. This was hardly the first time someone had raised alarm bells about AI.
Three years ago, the heads of OpenAI and Google DeepMind warned that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority.”
Twelve years ago, Stephen Hawking said that “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
Heck, Frank Herbert warned in his 1965 sci-fi classic, “Dune,” that “Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” Countless other sci-fi plots involved intelligent machines killing off or enslaving humans.
So, why is this latest warning getting so much traction? And why did Jacob Coxon, a relatively low-level former employee at Anthropic, become an instant media celebrity?
On Sunday, the New York Times home page prominently featured four articles — all free to read — about AI.
Also over the weekend, the four biggest AI labs called for the industry to slow down development. As Axios put it:
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei dropped a 3,800-word essay saying model development needs to be paced, otherwise doom scenarios are possible — like a rogue-agent takeover of the entire internet, which he said could be as soon as six months from now….
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shocked the AI chattering class by quoting Amodei’s essay on X and saying ‘Dario is right.’ Musk — who heads SpaceXAI, formerly xAI — had pointedly not joined previous industry-wide calls for any kind of slowdown.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted: ‘I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.’
Demis Hassabis — the Nobel laureate who co-founded and chairs Google DeepMind, and is Alphabet’s chief scientist — tweeted: ‘Dario’s essay points towards the right path forward. The details need working through, but the direction is correct for meeting this critical moment.’
Barack Obama sent a “private” message to Democrats that they should make AI a campaign issue for the midterms, which was covered by just about every news outlet on the planet.
On Sunday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he wants immediate congressional action to regulate AI development.
“We certainly need to begin to act urgently to address the challenges that exist,” Jeffries said on ABC’s “This Week.”
See also: ‘Climate Crisis’ Is So Yesterday, AI Is The Existential Threat Du-Jour
Reporters pressed Trump for his take on “concerns about AI leading to human extinction.” His response was that “We’re leading China in AI, we’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.”
So, again, we ask, who is driving this narrative?
The media don’t seem to care. But there are clues. First is the fact that Democrats are playing it up for political reasons before the midterm elections. They want to win votes. Second is China, which would benefit from the U.S. putting itself into an AI straitjacket.
But there’s another clue. The urgent calls for regulations are coming from the leading AI companies.
Kevin Bass, who made a name for himself criticizing the government’s response to COVID, has laid out what he says are “fourteen moves in eight days” to “create hysteria to manipulate Congress into regulating AI.”
He goes on to say that “almost everyone involved is affiliated with Coefficient, Open Philanthropy, Anthropic, and/or OpenAI — all of who serve to benefit financially from creating regulation.”
(Anthropic and OpenAI have more than doubled their lobbying spending in the first half of this year. Anthropic spent nearly $2 million in Q2 alone.)
But why would AI companies want the federal government to step in and regulate their industry? Because, as is the case with all government regulations, it’s the best way to block new entrants into a market. Big companies can hire lobbyists to make sure the rules are crafted to their liking, and they can easily absorb the costs of all the mandates. The little guys get shut out.
We’re not conspiracy mongers here, but it sure looks as though big AI companies have teamed up with Democrats and the mainstream media, probably with an assist from Chinese interests, to embark on a textbook anti-competitive regulatory push.
And they didn’t need AI to dream up this plan.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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