An AI researcher stood in front of a New York City hearing and warned that humanity is racing to build its own adversary. Took real courage to say that after the checks cleared.
The leading AI labs are facing scrutiny over safety and security practices. That's the phrase corporations use when they mean "we have no f*cking idea what we're doing but the stock price looks great." These labs spent billions teaching computers to think faster than humans while forgetting to answer whether that was a good idea in the first place.
Imagine spending your entire career making something smarter than you. Then acting shocked when people suggest it might not need you anymore. It's like breeding wolves in your living room and wondering why animal control keeps calling.
The researcher warned we're racing. Racing implies competition. Competition implies someone wins. Wins what exactly? The prize for first place is apparently a sentient machine that views humans the way we view dial-up internet. Slow. Obsolete. Vaguely nostalgic.
City hearings exist so elected officials can pretend they understand technology while nodding at PowerPoints. This researcher probably showed up with charts. Graphs. Maybe a slide that said "Existential Risk" in Arial Bold. Everyone took notes. Nobody stopped anything.
AI labs will keep building. Researchers will keep warning. Hearings will keep happening. And retail traders will keep buying stock in companies literally admitting they're constructing humanity's replacement because the quarterly earnings call sounded optimistic.
We're not racing to build our adversary. We already built it. Now we're just arguing about who gets credit when it wins.
Photo by Sviatoslav Didukh on Unsplash
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