Why would you want to build an AI that’s smarter than humans?
In Silicon Valley, they’re calling this superintelligence, but does anybody really want this? I mean, you could say AI is going to cure diseases or AI is going to help strengthen our national security. And yeah, like, I want those things too.
But why couldn’t we just build an AI tool to help cure diseases or build an AI tool to help with national security? Why does it have to all be one big product that does everything?
The answer is, of course, that’s what will make more money. They want to build the product that’ll imitate a person, make you feel like it’s your friend or your lover, seduce your kids, turn us all into slop junkies, and make it hard to tell what’s true or what’s false and undermine democracy, and yeah, give rise to authoritarianism and make gajillions of dollars along the way with the most sophisticated, algorithmically placed advertising ever.
Is that what we want? Because that’s what these big tech companies are talking about when they talk about building superintelligence.
So I’ve just signed this petition called a Statement on Superintelligence that’s signed by hundreds of people that are way smarter than I am about this stuff. But it says basically this: “Let’s not build superintelligence until, number one, we can prove it’s safe. And number two, the public actually wants it.”
The very inventors of this technology have signed this petition, as well as business leaders, religious leaders, political leaders on the left and the right, national security and military people, journalists, scientists, doctors, artists. And I’m honored to have been in the first round of signatories, but now they’re opening it up and they’re inviting anybody to come sign it.
So if you are concerned about the future these big tech companies are bringing to us without permission, signing this petition is at least one small thing you could do. I’ve added a link. Come check it out.
Thanks again.
https://superintelligence-statement.org/
