Essay by Eric Worrall

Soros leading the pivot from the fake climate crisis to the fake AI crisis.

AI is at the root of the world’s ‘polycrisis’

Climate change and the war on Ukraine are also threatening democracy, according to billionaire and philanthropist George Soros.

George Soros

We are living in troubled times. Too much is happening too fast. People are confused. Columbia University economic historian Adam Tooze has, indeed, popularised a word for it. He calls it a “polycrisis”.

The polycrisis has many sources. In my opinion the main source of the polycrisis afflicting the world today is artificial intelligence. Climate change comes second, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine qualifies as the third. The list is much longer but I’ll focus on these three. That should help reduce the confusion.

Artificial Intelligence

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Shortly thereafter, Geoffrey Hinton, who is generally considered the godfather of AI, resigned from Google so he could speak openly about the risks posed by the new technology. Reversing his previous position, he took a very dim view of AI. He said it could destroy our civilisation.

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What Hinton said made a big impression on me. Indeed, AI reminded me of Goethe’s poem The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The apprentice is studying magic but doesn’t fully understand what the master is teaching him. When the master orders him to sweep the floor, he applies the magic words to a broom. The broom obeys him, but the apprentice can’t stop the broom from fetching buckets of water to sweep the floor and the house gets flooded.

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Read more (paywalled): https://www.afr.com/technology/ai-is-at-the-root-of-the-world-s-polycrisis-20230612-p5dfui

I predicted this pivot back in 2017. The political utility of the fake climate crisis is all but spent, climate crisis rhetoric these days mostly only works on lefties who already planned to vote socialist. But AI scare stories have bipartisan appeal. And we’ve already been well primed for the fake AI crisis, by science fiction / horror stories like “The Terminator“.

I’m a software developer of over 30 years experience, who has personally written AIs. I’m not a “father of AI”, but I know a thing or two. I disagree with the AI apocalypse narrative.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a powerful metaphor, but in my opinion it is the wrong metaphor for rise of AI. A better metaphor is the arms race between computer virus creators and anti-virus companies.

Every so often a virus writer manages to slip in some blows, but our computers are mostly safe. Install the anti-virus, keep the subscription and software patches up to date, and you can go about your daily business.

In a similar way, whatever capabilities AI gives to miscreants, or whatever aberrant capabilities AI develops on its own, it will be treated like yet another computer virus, to be countered by AIs primed to monitor and respond to threats.

Is it possible someone could leap ahead and develop unique capabilities, or that an AI could develop a novel form of attack? Of course it is – look how Microsoft’s ChatGPT integration caught Google flat footed, an example Soros mentioned elsewhere in his article.

But who thinks this setback will be the ruin of Google, and all the other AI companies? By the end of this year the world will be awash with ChatGPT lookalikes, created by tech companies spending 10s of billions, whatever it takes, to stay in the race.

AI will create tremendous changes to society, some marvellous and others which many of us will find deeply disturbing. On the positive side, there will be glorious advances in medical science. Advances like medical immortality and cures for currently intractable diseases are almost within reach.

But AI will also bring challenging disruptions. Among other things, I foresee a future AI version of today’s schoolkid “trans” conflict, with progressive politicians demanding kids should be allowed to augment their brains and bodies with AI implants without parental consent, to avoid the trauma of feeling inferior to their augmented classmates.

But we’ll get through all that and more. Many of us alive today may live to see an age of marvels – an age of fulfilment and joy which today’s world can only barely glimpse.

In the meantime, we need to stand firm against this pivot to AI scare stories, just as we stood against climate scare stories and Covid lockdown scares. Because at the base of the AI fear campaign will be the very same people who are currently at the base of the climate crisis movement: meddlesome fools who believe they know how to run our lives better than we do.