Is AI doomsday another bust?
The world is going to end. Nobody knows how or when, but that doesn’t stop them from offering their predictions. The Mayan Calendar allegedly pinpointed Dec. 21, 2012 as the end of time, and climate activist Greta Thunberg seemed to forecast an apocalypse by 2023. None of these came to fruition – thankfully.
The latest fear centers around artificial intelligence (AI), and it has been dominating headlines. A former Anthropic researcher named Jacob Coxon recently quit in protest and raised the alarm over AI development. “We’re on track for a lot of the most aggressive of these scenarios where by the end of next year things could be out of control already,” Coxon claimed.
One of his colleagues seemed to agree, and noted on X, “We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”
All of that sounds quite terrifying, and has left people scrambling for answers and demanding government involvement. Yet the most obvious solution has been there all along: Companies can and should feel free to self-regulate.
As these whistleblowers made their rounds in the media, the AI industry responded. Anthropic’s CEO published an essay calling for more transparency within AI companies, cooperation between democratic governments and attempting to do so with authoritarian regimes. He also wrote, “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”
In a rare show of unity, several AI CEOs agreed that more should be done to address safety concerns. Symbolic consensus is one thing, but acting in unison is another. Perhaps that is why some top AI business leaders have been calling for more government regulation over AI.
President Trump quickly quashed that talk. “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” he wrote on Truth Social.
He later clarified his position: “The robots will not be taking over. The AI will not be taking over the rest of the world. The whole thing is a hoax … We have to be a little careful … that doesn’t mean we are going to stop an industry.” I leave it to my readers to decide who is telling the truth: Trump or the AI industry.
Either way, it seems that heavy-handed government controls over AI development are out of the question for now, although some lawmakers, particularly Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, are pushing for industry-killing regulations. His pending legislation would, “permanently ban the development and deployment of superintelligent AI and temporarily pause advanced AI development until a federal regulator has established safety rules,” according to a press release. Failure to comply could result in a 20-year prison sentence.
This would be the death knell in domestic AI development, which would negatively impact our economy, the discovery of medicines and therapies and the use of AI in cutting edge military technology. Meanwhile, competitors, like those in China, wouldn’t face any such impediments and would then easily surpass us.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that China also harbors concerns about AI, but for far different reasons. “China’s top spy chief has warned that artificial intelligence could pose a direct threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power,” the New York Times reported. The robots are apparently capitalists.
That aside, the Sanders bill is unlikely to move and Trump seems adamantly opposed to increased regulation. So where does that leave AI industry giants? They can voluntarily impose safety restrictions on themselves in lieu of government action, and they have already been taking safety into consideration.
They have experts who work to ensure development occurs safely and in the proper environment, and they have even discovered attempts to misuse AI, as evidenced by Anthropic recently flagging that foreign adversaries tried to use the technology to build weapons.
Nobody can tell the future. If past doomsday predictions are a good indicator, then we will also survive AI’s development. Since the Trump administration is wary of increased regulation, we may do so in the absence of additional government intervention. But let’s be clear about one thing: That doesn’t prevent companies from self-regulating if they want.