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Man With Ten Billion Dollars Invested in AI Sees No Risk in AI
Bill Gates dismisses idea of AI development pause
I was skeptical of the pandemic-era conspiracy theory that Microsoft founder Bill Gates intended to use vaccines to kill off some three billion people. Seemed a little too sociopathic, even by billionaire standards, and even the most demented supervillains normally have better judgment than to announce their genocidal plans in a TED talk.
However, based on Gates’ recent actions around AI development, maybe the tin-foil-hatters were on to something.
Following an open letter from a battery of experts demanding a six-month halt on the building of more powerful AI systems while we look for ways to prevent a box of rogue code from turning humanity into grey goo, Gates opined that a pause “wouldn’t solve the challenges” posed by the technology.
His apparent reasoning is that given the number of groups working on AI, a six-month break would be difficult to organize and enforce. That’s undoubtedly true, but with the most knowledgeable folks in the Skynet industry identifying a high chance that unchecked superintelligence would be endgame for homo sapiens, it seems like we should give it a shot anyway.
