A short phrase on the social network summed up the clash over the future of artificial intelligence more sharply than official speeches: “We are playing with the money of the establishment in a Native American casino in the low foothills of the singularity“. The author is Dean Ball – a person who participated in the creation of the US Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, and today the head of the Strategic Futures team at OpenAI.
The publication appeared after the meeting of the UN Security Council on September 23, dedicated to artificial intelligence and international security. At the event, executives from leading companies warned of risks they said could go beyond the capabilities of individual countries and labs.
Industry calls for coordination
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said decisions about the most powerful models should not be left to “one person, company or country” who can impose their own vision on the rest of the world. He called for rules to be made through democratic processes and by governments that are accountable to citizens.
Dario Amodei, head of Anthropic, warned that artificial intelligence could be used to develop biological weapons, and future models could become more capable than their creators can control. "If mismanaged, artificial intelligence could become a risk to humanity as a whole," he said.
Yoshua Bengio, a Turing Award winner and one of the pioneers of modern artificial intelligence, described the dangers of systems beyond human control as an unprecedented threat. He suggested that the most powerful models should be licensed, similar to other critical technologies, including nuclear energy, and that their developers should be held financially accountable.
Washington rejects “globalist scheme“
The US administration's response came from Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He said the United States "completely rejects any attempt to build a globalist scheme to control superintelligence."
Thus, two positions clashed at the same meeting. The heads of companies developing the most powerful models demanded international coordination and common rules. The Washington representative warned that global control could become a constraint on American technological leadership.
Dean Ball's Three Metaphors
The first part of Ball's phrase - "the house's money" - comes from the language of gambling. It describes a player who bets back on money he has already won and therefore accepts a greater risk. In the context of artificial intelligence, the metaphor points to the huge investments, high valuations of companies and contracts for computing infrastructure, which are concluded with money from investors, countries and financial markets.
“Indian casino“ suggests an environment with its own rules. In the United States, casinos run by tribal communities operate under a special legal regime. For Ball, this is an image of technological laboratories that largely set their own safety standards, while the state abandons an international framework.
The last part - – – – the low foothills of the singularity“ -ndash; reduces the pathos surrounding the technological future. The singularity is a hypothetical moment in which the development of machines occurs so rapidly that human predictions lose meaning. Instead of a majestic road to an unknown peak, Ball draws a provincial casino built at its foot.
That’s why the phrase caught attention: the author is not an outside critic of the industry. Ball was an advisor on artificial intelligence in the White House and participated in the development of the US Action Plan in this area. He then took over the leadership of Strategic Futures - a team at OpenAI that studies how society should prepare for the emergence of transformative technologies.
That leaves the dispute with no easy way out. There is still no agreement on how close the most serious risks are, whether development should be slowed down, and whether an international agreement is possible without the participation of all the major technological and military powers. In the meantime, the industry is raising the stakes, and countries are arguing about who should keep their hand on the brake.
Sources: Reuters, Axios, Guardian