It's Happening

Personal reflections on the AI acceleration

Artificial Intelligence crossing the Rubicon

‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust.’

T.S.Eliot, The Waste Land

There is a profound sadness about watching all this unfold. At Christmas, a good friend and deep ML expert at one of the world’s leading labs wrote in his email circular ‘It’s happening’. And I felt the same thrill and fear flare in me that comes multiple times daily now. He’s right. And we can’t stop it.

I re-read Sarah’s In Defence of Slowness at the End of the World again and again. I find myself back in church on Sunday. I wonder if I should read less for work and go back to theology and philosophy – passions in my teenage years and twenties. In coping with ‘the Coming Wave’ they feel now like they might be more important than anything I have learned since. The thrill is there. More on that another time. But moreover: I am worried.

I have written and spoken, with my usual mix of passion, evangelism and frustration, about where AI is going and how important it is going to be, for some time. We have named our new company ‘Cassi’ after Cassandra the prophetess condemned always to be right and never believed, in part in reference to a nickname given me in previous job. I am very aware that the warnings so many, I included, have advanced on the profundity of this revolution have not had the effect intended. We have failed.

So much has been written and said describing how disruptive a world of superintelligent AIs will be economically, socially, for national security – for humanity - that there is little need to requote and reference. Most of us commenting have striven to remain grounded, to avoid sounding ‘shrill’, to be sufficiently sober to retain a place with ‘the adults in the room’. But even now, as it is happening it remains a fringe issue. Acknowledged by Governments in words but not really in deeds. Treated with amusement and disdain by many in our governing and media classes. As if it is something we can worry about later. Part in consequence, it remains largely outside of electoral consciousness, with few doing the work to wake people up to what is coming.

Most thought ‘Don’t look up’ was about climate change. But not for me.

We are not ready. It is too late to be ready. It is too late to stop it.

I won’t pretend to know precisely how all this will play out. As ever, we do our best to grasp what Peter Hennessey called ‘the thin whisps of tomorrow’. That’s been central to my job for 22 years now. Forecasting breeds humility.

As Sarah writes

‘Those among us that are Situationally Aware must be on guard against arrogance. To anticipate some transformation that most live in ignorance of can easily breed self-importance. …worse, it can degrade the way that we perceive the efforts of others. …I don’t want to presume they’d act any differently if they knew (what I think) I know.’

Somewhere else, she wrote acknowledging we could be wrong – maybe some of us, and I one of them, have drunk the kool aid. Maybe, despite my protestations in ‘In Athena’s Arms’ (on AGI) we have succumbed to a cargo cult. In many ways, I hope so.

But until that becomes apparent, what I think I know is:

1. It is happening

2. We can’t stop it

3. We are not ready.

My view is that so much is unknown that our estimate of the probability of extinction risk from AI cannot be zero. But I do think it is highly unlikely (<5%). More likely is radical economic disruption, and social unrest. My biggest worry, because it feels more real and imminent, is that the things AI will take from us are the things I enjoy the most in my work – the search for new and novel insights, the act of creation, of communication, of anticipation and discovery - and yes, of struggle, and effort, the reward that comes from success at the end of it, or the consolations and lessons that exist in failure. I worry that even if we create a new economy, where intelligence is cheap and the AIs play the dominant role but we still work, the things I find most meaningful will be the things of least value.

I will keep writing, and play my part in what is unfolding as best I can. Because you can’t stop this, I would rather be on the upside of the bet than the downside. I think you can probably do more good to mitigate the disruption by being a part of the revolution than by sitting on the sidelines and commenting. I will try to enjoy the thrill of progress and do my bit, and my best to help others, to ameliorate the risks and harness the opportunities of what is coming. There are, of course potential radical upsides too, much greater prosperity, better health - some would say ‘curing death’, fully-automated luxury communism, Bostrom’s ‘Deep Utopia’. But I don’t think we get there without significant social and political unrest. ‘Significant’ being something of an understatement.

I worry that my writing breathlessly of progress and development is too easily misconstrued as delighting in the disruption. I write this because I want to be understood. There is a thrill to being a small part of - or even just being around to witness - the most far-reaching revolution in human history. But there is also a profound sadness about watching all this unfold. It’s happening.