Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has partially agreed with the notion that artificial intelligence (AI) could “kill humans”, but added that if the right path is taken, the chance of something going wrong is very low.
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Amodei said that he “agrees more than he disagrees” with former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who recently quit his job and publicly warned about the risks posed by advanced AI and even potentially being able to kill humanity by “the end of the decade”
"I agree with Jacob much more than I disagree with him. It's an interesting resignation because when he left, he said, 'I think Anthropic is the most responsible player. I think Anthropic is the most aware of these issues.' He wasn't calling out to us. He was calling out the dynamic of the industry as a whole, moving too fast,” Amodei told Cooper.
Deep Dive
What are the potential risks of developing AI too quickly?
Why do industry leaders support slowing down AI development?
How does Dario Amodei propose to ensure safe AI development?
The Anthropic CEO said that discussions about risks posed by AI are often in what he called “unconditional probabilities”
{{/usCountry}}The Anthropic CEO said that discussions about risks posed by AI are often in what he called “unconditional probabilities”
{{/usCountry}}"I used to talk in that kind of way because it's kind of an easy way to express. I think there's some chance that things will go wrong. But it's not all that high. But again, I think it's more illuminating to think in terms of how do you decompose those probabilities? What are the paths in which things go well, and what are the paths in which things go poorly," Amodei said.
According to Amodei, it is more useful to focus on the choices being made and the paths being taken by the industry and called for a slowdown in AI development.
"And so, instead of saying it's a 10% chance that sounds like it's a roll of the dice, I think it's much more illuminating to say that it forks into different paths. And if we take the right paths, then the chance of something going wrong is very low. If we take the wrong path, then the chance of something going wrong could be even higher than that. So, let's focus on our agency and our ability to take the right paths instead of the wrong paths. And I think that the way to take the right paths is for the industry to work together. It is harder, but to some extent, the world has to work together. If we go too slow, I still believe that the wrong people will be in charge of the technology and that again will bring the probability of things going wrong very high," he said.
What Jacob Coxon said
Jacob Coxon, who said he spent three years conducting research at both Anthropic and OpenAI, said on Tuesday on the social platform X that the two AI companies are more focused on beating each other and global competitors to develop the most advanced model possible than on safety.
In his social media posts, Coxon said Anthropic and its chief rival OpenAI “are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.” He warned that some working on AI development believe it could threaten human life by the end of the decade.
“Do not underestimate the power of this technology,” he continued. “These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionise any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing.”
Sam Altman, Elon Musk agree on slowdown
OpenAI boss Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who owns xAI, quickly chimed in to say they agreed with Amodei's assessment, as pressure builds for improved oversight.
In a post on X, Altman said, "I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we've had at OpenAI in recent weeks. Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same."
Tesla boss, Elon Musk, also endorsed Amodei's suggestion, saying on X, "Dario is right."