The big news this past weekend was, without any doubt, Dario Amodei's call to slow down AI development. I've had plenty of non-techies ask me about it. Is AI truly a big threat to humanity? I don't know. Heck, I'm convinced they don't know! Yes, AI can be used to inflict a lot of damage. But then, the same thing applies to many other things, including a plain old computer that could be used to hack into vital networks. It's a tool. Yes, relatively powerful. But less so that nuclear bombs, or chemical and bacteriological weapons, to give an example. At the moment, a new global pandemic, a big enough power outage, a large earthquake in California, or a new continental or world war are, I think, more likely and more worrisome. Let's not even talk about climate change, which is already having devastating effects on many countries causing heatwaves, floods, droughts, and impacting agriculture. Yes, AI is worrisome. But, let's face it, there are many other things to worry about. Many other things that are, perhaps, even more likely to blow up on our face. Also, call me cynical if you want, but I think the timing of this concern is quite "interesting" since both Anthropic and OpenAI are getting ready for their respective IPOs. All this week may benefit them in the purely financial sense. The more hype, the more publicity, the better off. In any case, what truly amazes me about all this is that the very same people who are pushing the eAI envelope further and further every day are the ones warning about its dangers (?!). You think it should be slow down? Go ahead! Start doing it! You're part of the problem yourself! Ah, I see. I hear you say that you cannot slow down without having a gurantee that your competitors will do the same, right? Well, guess what? Who else but the Government could step up then and enforce the slowdown on everyone? Yes, that very same Government that you complain so much about because you dislike regulation, which always ends up killing innovation. Right? Government intervention is socialism. Right? Ah, I see. Even if the US Government managed to mandate and enforce some safeguards, there is no guarantee that other countries, the Chinese in particular, will also do the same. Is that what you are saying? Ahem, I thought global governance was also evil. It's "socialism" once again, you know? Grow up! Start looking beyond your own damn self-interest and your profit margins. We have what we deserve after so many years undermining regulation and government intervention in the name of a childish concept of "freedom". {link to this entry}