AI might kill me, but first it’s going to get me a hell of a deal on a new insurance policy.
That’s been the vibe in the tech world over the past few weeks. Two very different opinions about the future of AI.
In one corner are the doomers. Earlier this month, an Anthropic researcher’s resignation and stark warning — that AI labs are “gambling with our lives” — kicked off a news cycle about whether AI could lead to the end of humanity. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and xAI’s Elon Musk eventually agreed that coordinating a slowdown of AI development would be in everyone’s best interest.
But just as we all were pricing out our AI bunkers, along came the AI boomers. People can’t stop praising the personal AI assistants they’re using, most notably Instinct and Meta’s Muse.
Suddenly, AI wasn’t so concerning if it could get you a good deal on a Halloween costume.
Seeing two theories — AI will destroy us; AI will empower us — arise in quick succession seems odd. But it’s important to understand that the messages are coming from different camps with different motivations.
Conveniently cautious
It’s easy to view the AI industry as a single, uniform blob, but the reality is that there are a lot of separate pieces with competing agendas.
Some of the biggest voices warning about AI’s end-of-the-world risks are also the people building cutting-edge models. As I’ve talked about before, the timing of their calls for a slowdown is too convenient to ignore.
Anthropic and OpenAI, both prominent voices in the cautionary camp, are startups looking to make a big splash in the public markets.
For top AI companies, coordinating a slowdown offers clear advantages: a chance to shape regulation in their favor and a ready-made excuse if their models fall short of the hype.
Asking for an agreed-upon pace in the middle of a race helps those in the front way more than those in the back looking to catch up.
Opportunistically optimistic
Those pushing AI into our personal lives aren’t without their own motivations.
Chief among them is Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. Weeks before the AI doom-and-gloom chatter ramped up, Zuck was singing AI’s praises. In a 6,500-word blog post last month, he painted a rosy picture of what an AI-powered future could look like, entitled “The Future is for Everyone.”
At the time, the AI industry was dealing with a PR crisis stemming from a general revolt over data centers. Now, it looks like Zuckerberg was also priming us for his new app. The future is indeed for everyone … as long as it’s powered by Muse.
Muse also represents Zuckerberg’s yearslong pursuit of building a platform that sits between consumers and the businesses trying to reach them, writes my colleague Alistair Barr. That’s valuable territory. And if you’re early, you can dictate your own terms.
So while others look to ease up on the gas, it’s no wonder Zuckerberg is willing to floor it. He’s had a rocky road pitching Meta’s expensive bets to investors. Why not press the advantage when he sees one?
Truth on both sides
The commercial interests of AI doomers and the AI boomers don’t make their arguments irrelevant.
The tech poses significant risks when left unchecked, yet offers incredible potential benefits to us all.
The trick will be weighing the risks on both sides and, more importantly, understanding what’s motivating them.
Maybe there’s an AI for that?
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