What AI CEOs Are Really Thinking

I want to start by reading a piece from...

The New York Times, because all of the mainstream corporate media are covering this story in sort of in the biggest possible way.

But here it is.

Dario Amadei, the chief executive of Anthropic, called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development in a 3,800 word essay on Saturday, just days after one of the company's employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology.

top executives of other major AI companies quickly signed on to the effort.

Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX rocket company has been ramping up spending on AI, and Demis Hassabis, the chair of Google DeepMind, wrote in social media posts that they agreed on the need for a, quote, slower pace.

Amadei, who founded Anthropic, focused his essay on security and carefully building AI.

This is something he wrote, Richard, and then I'll turn the floor over to you.

Quote, over the last few months, I have become convinced that That fully addressing the risks required even more prudence, not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up.

This is what Amadei wrote.

We must slow the pace at which we improve the capability of AI models.

Progress will still seem fast and we must make wise use of the time we gain.

And again, Richard, it was Jacob Coxon.

I hope I'm pronouncing his name right.

He's the anthropic researcher who very publicly resigned from the company.

over concerns regarding artificial intelligence's danger and reckless industry competition.

Anyway, there's two questions, Richard.

I'll start with the, well, I'll mention both of them to you and let you get going.

One, how AI has developed under the current system, which we call the anarchy of capitalist production.

Meaning profit incentive rather than social planning is the driver in this exponential race to spend trillions of dollars on AI.

This is true, especially in the US and Western countries.

And then the second question, big question, and a lot of people are talking about it, is regardless of social system, regardless of whether it's a profit-driven capitalist system or or a responsible socially planned system, in other words, socialism, is there something inherent in AI development that is qualitatively different than all of the earlier technological breakthroughs for humanity over the last, say, 12,000 years.

Of course, the last couple hundred under capitalism being the most dynamic.

Anyway, lots to talk about, Richard.

Let's get started.

I want to start by reading a piece from...

The New York Times, because all of the mainstream corporate media are covering this story in sort of in the biggest possible way.

But here it is.

Dario Amadei, the chief executive of Anthropic, called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development in a 3,800 word essay on Saturday, just days after one of the company's employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology.

top executives of other major AI companies quickly signed on to the effort.

Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX rocket company has been ramping up spending on AI, and Demis Hassabis, the chair of Google DeepMind, wrote in social media posts that they agreed on the need for a, quote, slower pace.

Amadei, who founded Anthropic, focused his essay on security and carefully building AI.

This is something he wrote, Richard, and then I'll turn the floor over to you.

Quote, over the last few months, I have become convinced that That fully addressing the risks required even more prudence, not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up.

This is what Amadei wrote.

We must slow the pace at which we improve the capability of AI models.

Progress will still seem fast and we must make wise use of the time we gain.

And again, Richard, it was Jacob Coxon.

I hope I'm pronouncing his name right.

He's the anthropic researcher who very publicly resigned from the company.

over concerns regarding artificial intelligence's danger and reckless industry competition.

Anyway, there's two questions, Richard.

I'll start with the, well, I'll mention both of them to you and let you get going.

One, how AI has developed under the current system, which we call the anarchy of capitalist production.

Meaning profit incentive rather than social planning is the driver in this exponential race to spend trillions of dollars on AI.

This is true, especially in the US and Western countries.

And then the second question, big question, and a lot of people are talking about it, is regardless of social system, regardless of whether it's a profit-driven capitalist system or or a responsible socially planned system, in other words, socialism, is there something inherent in AI development that is qualitatively different than all of the earlier technological breakthroughs for humanity over the last, say, 12,000 years.

Of course, the last couple hundred under capitalism being the most dynamic.

Anyway, lots to talk about, Richard.

Let's get started.