by Marie Snyder

How terrified should we be of Artificial Intelligence right now? I’m fascinated by the variety of perceptions on offer after a few Anthropic employees affirmed that “we really do believe AI can kill all humans.” Comedian Josh Johnson says what many of us are thinking: “Just say it. Just say what the thing is that AI would do that would kill everybody.” I’ve assembled some takes on the situation, from comedians, writers, philosophers, and filmmakers.  I don’t know what’s true or not or even how to get to the bottom of it all, so I’m just exploring how to think about it.

THE PRODUCTIONS:

“If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny, or they’ll kill you.” ~ Billy Wilder

The six videos are all from channels I watch fairly regularly for infotainment purposes.

Barry’s Economics (Sept. 17): “Jurassic Park Explains Why Nobody is Going to Stop AI” — Comedian Barry Ferns uses escaping dinosaurs to explain the problems we’re currently and potentially facing because “complex systems escape the categories you build for them.” He looks at different psychological effects that likely affected CEO decision-making, like that our brain is wired for immediate rewards, that the further away we are in time and space from harm, the more abstract the harm feels to us (and abstract things don’t motivate us), and that we all have biases, but we think they don’t affect us: “Intelligence doesn’t shrink the blind spot; it camouflages it.”

The Tea (Sept. 11): “The AI Bubble is About to Burst and We’ll All Pay” — Journalist and sci-fi author Cory Doctorow looks at the psychology of the bubble. “A lot believe they’re working on a god-like project.” He’s confident that AI is not as independent as people think. When it was claimed it breached a real company, that’s because it was trained on hackers breaching a company. It wasn’t independently malicious; it was just copying its training. And he explains why AI is not sustainable as a business: “They’re selling $100 bills for $1 each.” Read more »