Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08), an Expert on AI, Echoes Warnings of “Potential Systemic and Civilizational Risks”; Says We Need a “Sense of Urgency” on This Issue

If the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t at the minimum troubling to you, like…how is that even possible these days? 😉 I mean, seriously, if you’ve ever watched any movies (“Terminator,” of course; also “Ex Machina,” “War Games,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” etc, etc.), TV shows (“The 100,”  “Black Mirror,” etc.) or videos like this one (plus books like “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies,” “Human Compatible,” “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity,” “Life 3.0,” etc.), about the potential for disaster stemming from AI, you’ve got to have that in your mind somewhere as a possibility, along with the potential for economic displacement, deep fakes, and many other downsides from AI – along with potential positives, such as scientific, medicial and other breakthroughs from AI.

But the thing is, this is a VERY powerful technology, and like all technologies, can be used for good or ill – or develop in ways that we haven’t foreseen or prepared for – or even CAN foresee or prepare for. Of course, the techno-optimists and those with a vested economic interest in developing AI as rapidly as possible, with minimal if any safeguards, will assure us that there’s nothing to worry about, remain calm, all is well!  Except…what if that’s not the case? Like, what if some of these “most urgent AI risks”  – “AI possessing dangerous capabilities”; “cyberattacks, weapon developmentor use, and mass harm”; “power centralization and unfair distribution of benefits”; “false or misleading information”; etc. – actually become reality?  Or how about today’s article in The Guardian, “AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts: but how seriously should we take them?” (“Does artificial superintelligence really pose a risk greater than nuclear weapons? Is there a significant chance of “a Chornobyl-sized catastrophe”. Might there even be a greater than 10% chance that AI could “kill all humans” in the next decade? These warnings were issued over the past 48 hours on both sides of the Atlantic about the potential impact of a technology that most people still think of as a more talkative search engine.”). Yikes.

So now, we’ve now got a bunch of folks who are experts at AI warning us of “potential systemic and civilizational risks,” as Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08) – an expert in AI himself – puts it (see his comments, below, responding to Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who “is quitting the artificial-intelligence industry over fears that the lab and its competitors are racing to build systems they won’t be able to control, a sign of mounting safety concerns within top AI companies.”).

And yes, needless to say, Congress should have acted a long time ago to put in place to put necessary regulations/safeguards in place, with a “sense of urgency,” as Rep. Beyer says. Unfortunately, so far at least, Congress has barely done anything at all about artificial intelligence – just like it previously failed to do jack-shit about social media, which has been doing immense damage to our country and to the entire world, thanks in large part to the failure of governments to regulate it years ago. Meanwhile, as Rep. Beyer warns, efforts at addressing the risks stemming from AI are “moving too slowly,” even as “doing nothing on AI is unacceptable and dangerous.” And yet, right now at least, it seems like “doing nothing on AI” is pretty much what the U.S. Congress, let alone the horrendous Trump regime, are doing about this super-important, potentially existential issue. Great, huh?

P.S. I’ve got to say, I find it darkly amusing that people’s anger has mostly been directed at data centers, which of course are a necessary piece of infrastructure for AI, and not on AI itself. To me, that’s like getting angry at the telephone, instead of what is being said or transmitted over the telephone. Or getting angry at the internet generically, instead of how the internet’s being used/misused by bad actors, huge social media companies, etc. Because the fact is, AI is orders of magnitude more powerful, and potentially more threatening, than data centers ever will be…