Unsafe at any speed: AI optimists are turning cautious as safety concerns mount

OPINION It wasn't that long ago, like earlier this year, that AI leaders were doing their usual pie-in-the-sky proclamations of how everything would be so wonderful with AI.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei tweeted that AI "will actually be possible to cure most human diseases in ~5-10 years." While on a podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman proclaimed that AI would create "the greatest boom in people starting smaller businesses that we have ever seen." So, what's not to love? Well, you see those same AI CEOs/cheerleaders have also been tactfully admitting that AI isn't all that safe.

Altman, for example, recently admitted, "model capabilities were outstripping the pace of safety and alignment." Meanwhile, Amodei also said, "I worry that biology will have a strong attacker-defender asymmetry, where sufficiently capable models may be able to quickly weaponize pandemic-level viruses with widely available materials." They're not the only AI boosters who are having second thoughts.

Earlier this year, Bill Gates, who needs no introduction, described himself as an AI optimist.

Eight months later, he's singing a different tune.

Now Gates worries that AI could become “the worst source of injustice," and that current policy is putting the world on a course with “a very high chance of a net negative outcome.” Gates lately pronounced, "If the world takes the right steps, AI will be a force for good and leave everyone better off." But "right now we are not preparing for it.

I don’t see evidence that leaders, experts, and communities are confronting the challenges adequately." What is certain is that AI companies are saying they're doing things to make AI safer.

For instance, OpenAI recently introduced ChatGPT for Teens to protect teenagers from content about suicide, self-harm, and sexual chat.

Yeah, good luck with keeping teens from inappropriate materials.

It didn't stop me when our idea of racy stuff was Playboy magazine; it won't stop today's teens.

Besides, as my colleague Mike Elgan wrote, "the teen version of ChatGPT is an admission of guilt … [OpenAI] knows which features and attributes cause brain rot, addiction, and attachment — and… it knows how to turn them off." It won't turn them off, though, because "brain rot is profitable." Who am I to argue? Grok, despite protests from Elon Musk, is still getting into legal hot water for its use in deepfake porn.

A German survey found 30 percent of people admitted to using AI for sexual purposes.

As the song goes, "the Internet is for porn," and so is AI.

Of course, Mike assumes OpenAI can turn off its objectionable output.