It’s a really weird time in AI. In just six months, the public discourse around the technology has gone from “Chatbots generate funny sea shanties” to “AI systems could cause human extinction.” Who else is feeling whiplash? We’ve been here before, of course: AI doom follows AI hype. But this time feels different. The Overton window has shifted in discussions around AI risks and policy. What was once an extreme view is now a mainstream talking point, grabbing not only headlines but the attention of world leaders. Will Douglas Heaven asked AI experts why exactly people are talking about existential risk, and why now. Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation (which is behind the private messaging app Signal) and a former Google researcher, sums it up nicely: “Ghost stories are contagious. It’s really exciting and stimulating to be afraid.” Whittaker is not the only one who thinks this. While influential people in Big Tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, and AI startups like OpenAI, have gone all in on warning people about extreme AI risks and closing up their AI models from public scrutiny, Meta is going the other way.
Full counter-arguments : Meta’s AI leaders want you to know fears over AI existential risk are “ridiculous”
