By MIKE MAGEE
Final month, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, did it once more – scaring the bejesus out of societal leaders worldwide with warnings that their grip on safety and governance of human populations is dangerously near AI extinction.
Amodei’s opening paragraph in his article titled “The Adolescence of Technology” wastes no time getting the reader’s consideration. He writes, “There’s a scene within the film model of Carl Sagan’s e-book Contact the place the primary character, an astronomer who has detected the primary radio sign from an alien civilization, is being thought of for the position of humanity’s consultant to satisfy the aliens. The worldwide panel interviewing her asks, ‘In the event you might ask [the aliens] only one query, what would it not be?’ Her reply is: ‘I’d ask them, How did you do it? How did you evolve, how did you survive this technological adolescence with out destroying your self?’”
Now, I must be clear. I used to be already nervous. As a Medical Historian, getting ready for a serious lecture on the delivery of Immunology this Spring, I’ve been researching the sector. What am I searching for? The identical factor I all the time discover lacking when exploring the frontiers of scientific progress – historic context. Generally, information and figures abound, however their affect on the complicated net of human relations over time is commonly lacking.
Amodei is making an attempt to supply that context in actual time. Actual occasions embrace headlines like this one from the New York Instances: “ICE Already Know Who Protesters Are “ from AI powered facial recognition know-how . However Amodei’s considerations are extra basic. The problem for him is the velocity of change with generative AI which he clearly states is alarming. As he says, “As a result of AI is now writing much of the code at Anthropic, it’s already considerably accelerating the speed of our progress in constructing the following technology of AI techniques. This suggestions loop is gathering steam month by month, and could also be just one–2 years away from a degree the place the present technology of AI autonomously builds the following.”
Clearly with Musk’s latest DOGE foray in thoughts, Amodei lays out a reasonably believable modern-day vulnerability. He says, “It’s considerably awkward to say this because the CEO of an AI firm, however I believe the following tier of threat is definitely AI corporations themselves. AI corporations management massive datacenters, practice frontier fashions, have the best experience on how one can use these fashions, and in some circumstances have each day contact with and the opportunity of affect over tens or a whole lot of thousands and thousands of customers.”
Getting a bit extra particular with out outright naming Musk-controlled Grok and X, Amodei leaves little doubt who he’s referring to when he says, “Some AI corporations have proven a disturbing negligence in direction of the sexualization of kids in right now’s fashions, which makes me doubt that they’ll present both the inclination or the flexibility to deal with autonomy dangers in future fashions.”
At one level through the ICE offenses final month, a authorized observer in Portland, Maine, filming an ICE agent, was approached by the agent who had simply filmed her automotive and was now filming her face. Asking why he was doing that, the ICE agent replied, “Cuz we’ve got a pleasant little database and now you’re thought of a home terrorist. So have enjoyable with that.”
The actions of the previous month, and the unprovoked murders of two harmless US residents make Amodei’s remaining warning prescient. He says, “Present autocracies are restricted in how repressive they are often by the necessity to have people perform their orders, and people typically have limits in how inhumane they’re prepared to be. However AI-enabled autocracies wouldn’t have such limits.”
Mike Magee MD is a Medical Historian and common contributor to THCB. He’s the creator of CODE BLUE: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex. (Grove/2020)
