That critical moment when inside a lab somewhere in China or the U.S. artificial intelligence technology reaches the point where it will have the capacity and probably the will to extinguish humanity is still a few years away.
Small relief for sure but it means we still have time.
And it is increasingly clear that to contain and control this — the existential of all existential threats — will require from our leaders a degree of judgement, transparency and democratic oversight that is hard to imagine from the current Trump administration or the government in Beijing.
Lest the terminology trip us up, what we’re talking about here is AGI — artificial general intelligence, which maybe is best thought of as the level when it is not only smarter than us but able to dominate us as its inferior.
And no, this is not science fiction.
AGI will be by definition impossible for us to control. and then the various scenarios whereby AGI wipes out humans all come into play. (Reference: We’re Not Ready For Superintelligence.)
I don’t know what scares me most — those AGI scenarios or the likelihood that Trump will still be in power when we need him to act to ensure our survival. His regime is known for many things but “judgement, transparency and democratic oversight” are not among them.
The last thing humanity needs at this point in our evolution is for decision-makers motivated by greed, power and ideology to handle this emerging threat to our common future.
Competition with China is a key factor in the race toward AGI, just as competition with the USSR drove the nuclear arms race in the second half of the 20th century. And when it comes to transparency and democratic oversight, China is hardly likely to provide a better alternative to the U.S. in this new arms race.
Reaching the point where we can assure ourselves that we have achieved effective control over AGI before it yet exists is the key challenge of our time, and perhaps of all time, at least in human terms.
We are as a species incredibly vulnerable to disease, violence or simply aging out of our time here on earth. AGI will be able to use those vulnerabilities against us. Meanwhile, democracy is a messy process, and in this case, we will need leaders capable of compromise, negotiation, wisdom and determination to save everybody — not just themselves.
Meanwhile, what we have with Trump’s cabinet is a group like that portrayed in the 2021 film “Don’t Look Up,” i.e., a bunch of would-be escapees to outer space as opposed to saving the rest of us when the going gets rough.
The struggle facing reasonable Americans to wrest democratic control over our government from the tyrant currently in the White House is pretty much the same struggle we need to wage to institute sensible controls over AGI.
That is the good news. The alternative is unthinkable.
(Thanks to John Jameson.)
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