Artificial intelligence could destroy civilization, warns science researcher and podcaster Curt Jaimungal.
He thinks the engineers behind it don't realize what they're creating and "are going to burn their hands"
His warning came at the end of a podcast in which Martin Willis asked him if AI was "dangerous for our future".
Here's Curt's (slightly truncated) response:
"I think it may be the most dangerous. I think that some of the people who are working on AI should examine their motivations and examine what they're doing. Some of the people at Open AI who are creating Chat GPT and GPT4 and the Mid-Journey 3 and Dolly 4 or Dolly 3, I think that they don't think about the consequences of what they're doing- same with Google, same with Microsoft. I think they're all engineers or the majority of them are engineers and it's akin to people who are in the Manhattan Project who are physicists who are so jazzed about the physics super jazzed, it's fun. I think that they don't realize that what they're creating. They're going to burn their hands, just like Einstein said 'I would have burned my hands had I known the consequences of what I had signed off to', speaking about the nuclear bomb.
So a question (for) these open AI people - sure what you're doing.....there's the possibility for extreme public benefit but is that worth the possibility for extreme destruction, perhaps even civilization annihilation? I think each person needs to think, is what I'm doing ethical or possibly can it be turned into something unethical?
I think that it's a terrible place to be where someone says, 'Well look I'm not going to quit my job at Google because, one, it pays well, second, if I don't do it someone else will.' It reminds me of this movie, I forget what it was, but it has Nicolas Cage and he was a weapons dealer I believe, and he said 'Hey I may as well deal weapons because if I don't someone else is going to take my position.' I think that's abdicating your your culpability I think it's extremely dangerous and think you should allow someone else to do it. You should keep your hands clean. Keep your own hands clean, don't worry that someone else is going to dirty their hands."