AI is not that far away from reinventing itself in Washington

Before we hit the main topic of this article, I should mention that I saw an interview recently. A great tech expert was asked what percentage of all jobs being downsized right now in America can be blamed on artificial intelligence, and I thought the answer was interesting. 

The expert said that of all the downsizing that's going on in America right now, only 5% of that downsizing can be directly attributed to the advent of AI. The rest of that downsizing is just corporations and business owners trying to trim down their overhead so that they can post better profits at the end of the year. 

To me, that's a relief. AI is not going to replace us just yet. But I think it would be safe to say that it certainly wants to. 

What do we really need to worry about?

A recent blog posted by Anthropic's Marina Favaro and Jack Clark raises the possibility of their artificial intelligence rewriting its own code. 

The Anthropic blog said,
‘“AI that can build itself would be a major development in the history of technology – one that could bring enormous good for the world in science, healthcare, and beyond.
But full recursive self-improvement also might increase the risks of humans losing control over AI systems.”’ 

They went on to say that up until recently, all of the progress of Anthropic's artificial intelligence named “Claude” could be attributed to human engineers working diligently to make it happen. And then with all of these improvements it could place “Claude” on the path of “recursive self-improvement” which is “tech speak” for Claud the AI to rewrite his own code to make himself better, as he sees fit. (Why am I naturally assuming that Claude is male? I don't know.) 

Can we slow down AI?

The blog went on to suggest that possibly slowing down the development of AI could be a positive thing, but would it require “broad industry consensus, as well as political cooperation amid intense geopolitical pressures and rivalries” 

I think that's a lovely sentiment, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. (Keep in mind it needs to be soon.) There is a slight possibility that you could get some governments to agree to a slowdown of AI, but I think it would be impossible to get any kind of agreement among corporations to slow down the development of AI.  

I think it's safe to say that all of the Tech Bros that are Competing In this “tech space” want to win. On some level, it may not even be about the money, although there's a lot of that flying around. It's about being first. It's about standing in front of your peers and saying, hey, we beat you. 

I like winning just as much as the next guy. But for me, I think a little moderation might be needed. 

Tell me what you think.