Debates over AI consciousness are a trap
“Runaway” AI, “rogue” agents, and “autonomous” actors—the current rhetoric would have you believe that AI agents are not only awake and aware, but angry at their creators.
“Runaway” AI, “rogue” agents, and “autonomous” actors—the current rhetoric would have you believe that AI agents are not only awake and aware, but angry at their creators.
The short version
- Prominent tech leaders such as Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, and Sam Altman push for regulation of these seemingly “superhuman” systems, while a separate faction, led by policy organizations…
- If AI systems are viewed as too advanced to control, the companies that build them can’t held liable for the harms they cause.
- Upon closer inspection, they are all calling for the same thing: a view of AI systems as being so advanced and capable that no entity, human or corporate, could possibly be responsible for their actions.
What happened
While these perspectives seem at odds, they are inadvertently aligned on one goal: making sure the companies that build these systems escape meaningful liability for the harms they already cause. This narrative is gaining traction as AI models become more complex and frontier labs reveal their incapability of containing the agents they’ve built.
Why it matters
But we need to be careful not to buy into a carefully crafted fiction at the expense of real human lives.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at MIT Technology Review — AI via the links above and below.