Is AI Just Now a Money Sucker?

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With AI to imagine the future, you need only look closely at the present. Could these systems usher in a new era of scientific progress as a booster's hope? In some cases, they already have. A system built by DeepMind that managed to predict the 3D structure of tens of thousands of proteins. This was a breakthrough so remarkable that editors of the journal science named it the breakthrough of the year. Will AI populate our world with non-human companions and personalities?"

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.