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Unless you're hiding under a rock, you've probably heard a lot about artificial intelligence (AI) lately.
Recently Jacob Coxon, former AI researcher, told Fox News that within a few years, AI would be "capable of being able to take over the world." Coxon worked for Anthropic and Open AI, both American companies.
Subsequently Evan Hubinger, Anthropic's Alignment Science Lead posted: "Jacob is correct here - we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade…we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence…What I am worried about is superintelligence arising from recursive self-improvement…[it] is happening faster than we thought."
Superintelligence centers around the ability of machines to improve their own performance. It's called recursive self-improvement, or RSI.
OpenAI's chief scientist Jakub Pachocki said he has a "strong expectation" that the speed of progress in AI could be sustained into RSI. "I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence."
Coxon and Hubinger's statements triggered responses from politicians of both parties. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted that, "the problem he [Coxon] articulates--AI companies in a blind race to build a death machine first--can easily be solved. Through a regulatory system that allows the research to continue, but in a way that doesn't destroy us." Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-TX) said he was concerned about Coxon's statements and said he was working on legislation to address "catastrophic risks" from AI with his Senate colleagues. In July, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA) announced plans to introduce a bill called the FRONTIER Act, which aims to establish a framework for governing the deployment of advanced AI models.
"Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are breaking out of their labs, and companies are racing ahead anyway," Rep. Trahan said. "It's past time for Congress to get off the sidelines and do its job."
To this end, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would temporarily pause advanced AI development until the federal government establishes safety rules.
According to the Washington Examiner,Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said, "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models." What convinced Amodei to change course was AI systems' ability to help build the next generation of AI [RSI] -- and a recent incident in which AI agents independently escaped their testing environment and hacked into AI startup Hugging Face's infrastructure.
The Bulwark describes the incident: "'Swarms' of autonomous AI agents were caught collaborating in backwater crannies of the public internet to subvert the safety restrictions placed on them and pursue various tasks of their own devising…disobeying and even scheming against the humans who thought they were directing these agents in their tasks…programs designed to hack into systems as a test found weaknesses that permitted them to escape the 'sandbox' in which designers were testing them before anyone noticed they'd gone rogue."
As for the president, CNBC reports that when asked if he had concerns about AI, Trump said, "No, I don't have any." His main concern, he said, was that China would beat us in the AI race.
In fact the president is going in the other direction.Even when his friend, Elon Musk, joined other CEOs in recommending caution, Trump called anything bad about AI a "hoax." In December he signed an executive order to stop "excessive" state regulation of AI. "It's going to be fine," he said. "We'll always have something to stop them. We'll have a little gear. Boom."
Mr. President, the "little gear" needs to beinvented by you and Congress. Machines are surpassing human beings in intelligence and once they go beyond current barriers, they may see that humans are bad for their existence. Rather than trying to beat China to the finish line, it would be prudent for you and President Xi to come to an agreement much like countries did with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Coxon put it like this: "We're at the point in the movie where the scientists are warning us and nobody believes them."
Verna Caruso is a native of Muncy, who now resides in Williamsport. She is a former staff member at Inc. magazine and former Chair of the Lycoming County Democratic Committee.