Our AI future and the need to stop the bear

Here, in pdf, is my latest essay Our AI future and the need to stop the bear.¹

In it, I describe humanity's current predicament regarding existential AI risk, and our urgent need to solve the situation. This is important stuff. I didn't intend it when I started writing, but towards the end it turns into a pamphlet, a manifesto, a call to action. If you read just one thing by me in 2025, let this essay be it. Here!

Footnote

1) Perhaps you wonder about the bear. I rarely write about bears, so what about the bear? It comes from a metaphor by Connor Leahy, which I quote on p 2 of my essay:

My emphasis on the risks stems from a realization of how urgent the need to mitigate them has become. In a recent podcast, AI researcher Connor Leahy went further in his colorful motivation for this prioritization by stating that “it is not useful to philosophize about the communist utopia if a bear is currently ramming down your door”.

Back from Paris

The so-called AI Action Summit¹ takes place today and tomorrow in Paris, but I am back home after the inaugural meeting of the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI that took place there last week. Much was said at our meeting that I would wish for the world leaders at the Summit to pick up on, but if I had to single out just one sentence, it would be the following, said by the organization's president pro tempore Stuart Russell in his closing address:

It is entirely reasonable for governments to impose safety requirements that manufacturers cannot meet.

Read it, and read it again, and upon a moment's thought you will find it utterly obvious. Safety requirements are safety requirements. Yet, so much of contemporary AI governance discussion seems to implicitly rest on its negation.

Stuart Russell's talk can be found here, beginning 03:35:50 into the video. Other notable talks were given by Yoshua Bengio, Anca Dragan, Geoffrey Hinton, Maria Ressa, Joseph Stiglitz and Max Tegmark. These and many others are available in the videos collected here. I especially recommend Bengio's talk, beginning 17:00 into this video.

Footnote

1) The name change, compared to the 2023 AI Safety Summit led by Rishi Sunak at Bletchley Park in the UK, is unfortunate. You can still protest!