Behind the Curtain: The AI titans' biggest private fear
We ask almost every AI architect and leader the same thing in private: What AI risk worries you most?Almost all of them fire back the same response: a killer pathogen, spreading too silently, widely and quickly to stop.Why it matters: The rare agreement among AI experts flows from the belief these advanced models could help a bad actor create a deadly pathogen before the government and industry perfect detection and prevention systems.This isn't a likely scenario. And some of AI's biggest optimists reject doom scenarios.It's simply a plausible one as AI gets better at understanding our biological vulnerabilities, much like it has our cyber ones inside large nonhuman systems.Driving the news: The experts aren't hedging.
Reported by 1 outlet — Axios. See all sources ↓
We ask almost every AI architect and leader the same thing in private: What AI risk worries you most?Almost all of them fire back the same response: a killer pathogen, spreading too silently, widely and quickly to stop.Why it matters: The rare agreement among AI experts flows from the belief these advanced models could help a bad actor create a deadly pathogen before the government and industry perfect detection and prevention systems.This isn't a likely scenario. And some of AI's biggest optimists reject doom scenarios.It's simply a plausible one as AI gets better at understanding our biological vulnerabilities, much like it has our cyber ones inside large nonhuman systems.Driving the news: The experts aren't hedging. In a new MIT FutureTech and University of Queensland study, 272 researchers ranked 24 top AI risks.They assessed a 12% chance that AI's dangerous capabilities produce a catastrophic outcome by 2030, and another 12% chance of AI-enabled weapons and mass-harm capabilities.And that's with mitigation efforts to reduce risk. Without those efforts, the chances exceed 20%.The researchers defined "catastrophic" as more than 1 million deaths or $100 billion in damage.
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- What's the story?
- We ask almost every AI architect and leader the same thing in private: What AI risk worries you most?Almost all of them fire back the same response: a killer pathogen, spreading too silently, widely and quickly to stop.Why it matters: The rare agreement among AI experts flows from the belief these advanced models could help a bad actor create a deadly pathogen before the government and industry perfect detection and prevention systems.This isn't a likely scenario. And some of AI's biggest optimists reject doom scenarios.It's simply a plausible one as AI gets better at understanding our biological vulnerabilities, much like it has our cyber ones inside large nonhuman systems.Driving the news: The experts aren't hedging.
- How widely is it covered?
- 1 outlet, average source rating 7.0/10.
- When was it last updated?
- 5m ago.
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Behind the Curtain: The AI titans' biggest private fear
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