By James O’Donnell – MIT Technology Review –
As technologists frame AI as either utopian or dystopian, two researchers offer a third option.
Right now, despite its ubiquity, AI is seen as anything but a normal technology. There is talk of AI systems that will soon merit the term “superintelligence,” and the former CEO of Google recently suggested we control AI models the way we control uranium and other nuclear weapons materials. Anthropic is dedicating time and money to study AI “welfare,” including what rights AI models may be entitled to. Meanwhile, such models are moving into disciplines that feel distinctly human, from making music to providing therapy.
No wonder that anyone pondering AI’s future tends to fall into either a utopian or a dystopian camp. While OpenAI’s Sam Altman muses that AI’s impact will feel more like the Renaissance than the Industrial Revolution,
