AI Safety Is a Narrative Problem
Rachel Coldicutt:
All of this [p(doom)] myth-making and rhetorical bluster is a just a narrative trick: the hidden object is not a technology, but a bid for power. This is a plot twist familiar from Greek myths, cautionary tales, and superhero stories, and it’s extremely compelling for journalists because most technology news is boring as hell.
Altman’s current line is roughly, ‘please regulate me now because I’m not responsible for how powerful I’m going to turn out to be -- and, oh, let’s just skip over all the current copyright abuses and potentially lethal misinformation because that’s obvs small fry compared to when I accidentally abolish humanity.’ If it reminds me of anything, it’s the cartoon villain Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, who makes regular outlandish claims before trying, and failing, to take control of the Tri-State Area. The difference is, of course, that Phineas and Ferb always frustrate his plan.
My point is not so much that we need Phineas and Ferb to come and sort this all out, but that we need to stop normalizing credulity when people with power and money and fancy titles say extraordinary things. When I went to Hinton’s Q&A in Cambridge this past summer, he spoke with ease and expertise about neural nets, but admitted he knows little about politics or regulation or people beyond computer labs. These last points garnered several laughs from the audience, but they weren’t really funny; they spoke to a yawning gap in the way that technology is understood, spoken about, and covered in the media.
Tags: rachel-coldicutt narratives politics ai-safety p-doom sam-altman phineas-and-ferb journalism news