Artificial general intelligence
After viewing the documentary, The AI Doc., Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, I have a new understanding, and concern, as to the implications of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Included in the film were interviews of Sam Altman (OpenAI), Dario Amodei (Anthropic) and Demis Hassabis (DeepMind). Questions posed ranged from what they felt were the safety concerns with this new technology to whether they would consider having children in the current environment. This is probably the biggest issue of our time, as it can either be a positive change agent for current issues, including climate change and world hunger, or could be used by nefarious actors to amass great power and eradicate perceived enemies. The companies that are developing these systems have little incentive to ensure the safe deployment of their technologies, not to mention the impact large data centers have both regionally and globally. It is imperative that governments across the world, including the United States, establish mutually agreeable “guardrails” to enhance AGI’s ability to affect positive outcomes, similar to what was undertaken during nuclear proliferation. Not doing so could cause irreversible and devastating consequences.