By MIKE MAGEE
last month, Dario AmodeiCEO of Anthropic, has done it again: scaring social leaders around the world with warnings that their control of the security and governance of human populations is dangerously close to AI extinction.
Amodei’s opening paragraph in his article titled “The adolescence of technology” He wastes no time capturing the reader’s attention. He writes: “There is a scene in the film version of Carl Sagan’s book Contact where the main character, an astronomer who has detected the first radio signal from an extraterrestrial civilization, is being considered for the role of humanity’s representative to the extraterrestrials. The international panel that interviewed her asked her: “If you could ask [the aliens] Just one question, what would it be? His answer is: ‘I would ask them: How did you do it? How did you evolve, how did you survive this technological adolescence without destroying yourself?’”
Now it should be clear. I was already nervous. As a medical historian, preparing for a major conference on the birth of immunology this spring, I have been researching the field. What am I looking for? The same thing I always find missing when exploring the frontiers of scientific progress: historical context. In most cases, facts and figures abound, but their impact on the complex web of human relationships over the years is often overlooked.
Amodei is trying to provide that context in real time. The real times include headlines like this one from the New York Times: “ICE already knows who the protesters are” of AI-powered facial recognition technology. But Amodei’s concerns are more fundamental. The challenge for him is the speed of change with generative AI, which he says is alarming. As he says: “Because AI is now writing much of the code in Anthropicis already substantially accelerating the pace of our progress in building the next generation of AI systems. “This feedback loop is gaining momentum by the month, and we may be just a year or two away from the current generation of AI autonomously building the next.”
Clearly with the recent DOGE Raid In mind, Amodei presents a fairly plausible modern vulnerability. He says, “This is a bit awkward to say as the CEO of an AI company, but I think the next level of risk is actually the AI companies themselves. AI companies control large data centers, train frontier models, have the most experience in how to use those models, and in some cases have daily contact and the ability to influence tens or hundreds of millions of users.”
Be a little more specific without directly naming those controlled by Musk. Grok and unknownAmodei leaves no room for doubt who is it referring to even when he says: “Some AI companies have shown a disturbing negligence toward the sexualization of children in current models, making me doubt that they will show the inclination or ability to address autonomy risks in future models.”
At one point during ICE crimes Last month, a legal observer in Portland, Maine, who was filming an ICE agent, was approached by the agent who had just filmed his car and was now filming his face. When asked why he was doing that, he The ICE agent responded“Because we have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist. So have fun with that.”
Last month’s activities and the unprovoked murders of two innocent American citizens make Amodei’s final warning prescient. He says: “Current autocracies are limited in how repressive they can be by the need for humans to do their bidding, and humans often have limits in how inhumane they are willing to be. But AI-based autocracies would have no such limits.”
Mike Magee MD is a medical historian and regular contributor to THCB. He is the author of CODE BLUE: Inside America’s medical industrial complex. (Greet/2020)
