The US and China are in a race for AI dominance. Money is gushing towards companies with AI expertise. They're going faster to suggest they go slower or even stop entirely. If we had eons to adjust, perhaps we could do so cleanly, but we don't. Fadilism becomes the handmaiden of inevitability - justification for acceleration.
This is something a bit different: Not an interview, but a commentary of my own.
We’ve done a lot of shows on A.I. of late, and there are more to come. On Tuesday, GPT-4 was released, and its capabilities are stunning, and in some cases, chilling. More on that in Tuesday’s episode. But I wanted to take a moment to talk through my own views on A.I. and how I’ve arrived at them. I’ve come to believe that we’re in a potentially brief interregnum before the pace of change accelerates to a rate that is far faster than is safe for society. Here’s why.
Column:
“This Changes Everything” by Ezra Klein
Episode Recommendations:
Sam Altman on the A.I. revolution
Brian Christian on the alignment problem
Gary Marcus on the case for A.I. skepticism
Ted Chiang on what humans really fear about A.I.
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Roge Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Rollin Hu. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Original music by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.