The AI Giants’ Doomsaying Is Also a Sales Pitch |
The AI Giants’ Doomsaying Is Also a Sales Pitch
Companies like Anthropic regularly warn about the risk and threats posed by artificial intelligence—and then rake in tens of billions of dollars.
Axios, whose reporting is increasingly defined by minuscule “scoops” about the artificial intelligence industry, reported last week on the latest red alert from Anthropic about an impending “intelligence explosion.” The AI lab’s research arm released an agenda for tackling the myriad risks and threats of this fearsome technology, including the likelihood that AI will effectively procreate—that is, build new models without any human involvement. “My prediction is by the end of 2028, it’s more likely than not that we have an AI system where you would be able to say to it: ‘Make a better version of yourself.’ And it just goes off and does that completely autonomously,” Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark told Axios.
The creator of Claude is known for issuing such omens; as Axios notes, Anthropic’s “identity is wrapped around warning the world about AI risk.” But it’s hardly alone. OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, also regularly sounds the alarm. At the same time, these companies are raising capital at historic levels to fund their work and enrich themselves. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that OpenAI recently allowed current and former employees to sell up to $30 million worth of shares. More than 600 people jumped at the chance, and together they made $6.6 billion.
The contradictions surrounding AI have become impossible to ignore. The companies building it warn about catastrophic risk while simultaneously speeding up deployment, competing to dominate what we’re told is the most consequential technological transformation in history. Every player in the race, including governments, which are rushing to integrate AI deeper into military, educational, and administrative systems, publicly acknowledges the challenges and the dangers, and none can afford to stop.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s essay “The Adolescence of Technology,” published in January, is a masterpiece of the form. Drawing on Carl Sagan’s Contact, he frames our current moment in AI as humanity’s defining crossroads. He claims we are at the turbulent threshold between the civilization we have and the one we might become, facing five categories of existential risk: rogue autonomous AI systems, misuse of AI for mass........