A year ago today, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares published a blunt warning about artificial superintelligence: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.
A brief retrospective on the book’s arguments and predictions is now live on MIRI’s website. I won’t cover the same ground here, but there is one tidbit that didn’t make it into the retrospective.
A colleague pointed out that today is also the anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol, the global agreement that, in 1987, set the world on course to reverse the damage done to the ozone layer by the careless release of ozone-depleting chemicals. It’s a standout example of the world taking rapid international action to resolve a global crisis, a mere two years after scientists sounded the alarm.
With the current speed of AI development, I fear two years may prove too slow. But the world can move faster when leaders recognize a crisis; this very month, Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping will meet to discuss the future of AI, and if the U.S. and China can agree to curtail the AI race, the rest of the world may well follow suit.
It has been a wild year, and I find myself wistfully imagining a world in which the book’s warnings were perhaps a little bit less timely and prescient. But we play the hand we’re dealt, and if nothing else, I’m heartened by the way so many people are coming to realize the danger and speak out.
The analyses and opinions expressed on AI StopWatch reflect the views of the individual contributors and the sources they cover, and should not be taken as official positions of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.