When the World Is Ending, What Is Art For?

But then, this past week, I, like so many of you, watched as multiple AI company employees went rogue, screaming about how AI has a greater than 10% chance of wiping out all human beings in the next 10 years, some suggesting as soon as the next six months, and now I don't know what to think.

I've spent much of the week since this news nauseous, unable to focus on much, which is why you're not listening to my new conversation with Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director Paul Weitz right now, as planned.

Every time I tried to finish my edit of the episode, I just couldn't.

I felt I had to talk about this instead.

Of course, some of you will dismiss my reaction as alarmist.

You'll shove your head back into your hole and tell me we've been here before as a species.

The Cold War, of course.

The difference here being that the Cold War was waged by a handful of people.

I mean, the ones making the decisions about what was going to happen to our planet.

Flesh and blood people, by the way, who had human reasoning.

Loved ones.

A lived experience of this life.

In the case of AI, we'd be dealing with a completely alien consciousness.

That, if it finally happens, and yes, there is a debate if it will.

But if it does, it will not conform in any way to our fears of it.

There's not one person alive who could remotely predict what happens next.

Even in benevolence, it will be a god that can control every aspect.

of our lives, including how we think.

At worst, it just wipes us out.

Not even to protect itself, mind you.

But because we're superfluous.

Maybe it would just be an accident, a side effect of some other plan it puts into action because it never even stops to think about us.

None of this should shock anyone, since science fiction, film, and TV have been warning us about all of this for decades.

Sometimes with eerie precision, this is why I couldn't make myself finish editing that Paul Weitz episode, which I'm really looking forward to sharing with you.

I am.