alt Hacker NewsJack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic said the following at an Oxford lecture last week ([0], at around 10 and 12 mins):
"It's a technology that we do not fully understand because it's more grown than made. And it is a technology that you can concoct plausible scenarios where it could kill every single person on the planet. So to think building this technology is without risk would be an act of hubris or insanity.
The technology is in fact so powerful that I should clearly state that if it was possible to elegantly slow the development of this technology to give ourselves more time as a species to deal with it, that would likely be a good thing. ... But in the absence of a coordinated global slowdown, we are left with the current situation, which is a powerful technology being developed at breakneck speed by a variety of actors and a variety of countries locked in a competition with one another where commercial and geopolitical rivalries are often drowning out the larger existential-to-the-species aspects of the technology being built. This isn't an ideal situation, but it's the one we find ourselves in."
Replies
It's worth noting that Clark's career started in PR and journalism.
It's worth remembering that people do not always say what they believe. Instead, they often say that which benefits them the most.
Was a good watch, tho would have liked to be there in person. Props to Brenden & his Cosmos team for really setting the bar.
Thank you Mr. Altman for firing the starting gun when no one else wanted to race.
(The ambiguity of sarcasm is intentional here.)
"Oh what peril we are in where I must get rich by killing all of you" Is a statement that should make you disregard anyone saying it at any time. Either they are liars, or they are so morally bankrupt that they are willing to sacrifice the species for short term satisfaction. Either option makes them more fit for a mental hospital than a stage.
>you can concoct plausible scenarios where it could kill every single person on the planet.
Idiots can scary black box their way to that concern. Plausible? Not so much.