It’s not often that we get a ringside seat to the Birth of a Narrative. Usually, those overseeing the parturition are careful to manage the event offstage, away from the prying eyes of skeptics, spoilsports, and counternarrativists. There are walls of silence and moats of obfuscation to accompany the rollout. That helps keep everyone on message. There are media firemen assembled to extinguish the flames and wash away the reputations of questioners. That helps neutralize pests and quash doubts. 

But with the sudden onslaught of the “AI will end humanity” narrative, the impresarios orchestrating the debut got sloppy. They knew their own lines. Artificial intelligence was the biggest threat to humanity since, well, since ever. Forget Covid, forget climate catastrophe, forget the population explosion or collapse. AI was it, the real McCoy, the cliff, the secret signal calling forth all the Chickens Little throughout the land. Right on cue, Bernie Sanders threatened legislation to bankrupt companies and cast anyone pursuing “superintelligence” into prison for 20 years. Some innocent bystanders wondered whether by “superintelligence” the Senator meant anyone more intelligent than he. 

You can be sure that Xi Jinping is not “self-pacing” the development of AI

You can be sure that Xi Jinping is not “self-pacing” the development of AI

Barack Obama, still following the mantra of not letting any crisis go to waste, issued statements about “slowing down the pace of AI development.” Watch out for that word “pace.” You will see it everywhere. On September 12 this year, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, the company at the center........

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