AI: Nothing to Fear but Fear itself

...humans eventually get it right, with technology

Franklin D. Roosevelt, on his first inauguration as the 32nd president of the US on 3/4/1933, famously paraphrasing Thoreau, and delivered his ‘famously pointed reference’ to ‘fear itself’:

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

The words were set to steel the nation’s resolve in the teeth of the Great Depression.

Abject fear is part of our evolution, the core instinct that drove our species to win the Darwinian contest against most others thus far on planet earth. The other instinct of course, is Greed. Greed for food, shelter, and happiness beyond.

Fear was of course at the heart of how OpenAI got founded in 2015 by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and other tech luminaries and altruists. Concerns that AI might be too unsafe for humanity if controlled by one company (Google), or if left to unfettered greed run rampant. Thus the Open in OpenAI, its path from non-profit to profit driven hybrid structure in 2019, the resulting partnership with Microsoft, and of course this week’s developments becoming part of the Microsoft firmament.

Fear especially by creators of technology deserves particular discussion, especially this year being the year of ‘Oppenheimer’ from a movie culture perspective. We all now know viscerally the line quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer “Now I am become death, the Destroyer of Worlds” quote from Hindu scriptures.

One could argue that the Fear of nuclear technologies and what might go wrong has denied the world of far greater energy optionality since Three Mile Island and subsequent mishaps. We will never know the alternative futures that might have been if the technologies had been allowed to grow, innovate, become more reliable, and of course safer. Fear capped off those possibilities, potentially extending our current Climate crisis and ongoing dependence on fossil fuels as well as geopolitical realities.

Fear of the next exponential leap in LLM AI by Ilya Sutskevar (above right), one of OpenAI’s core founders, Chief Scientist, and non-profit OpenAI board member, was one of the catalysts for this past week’s Black Swan OpenAI event that disintegrated a technology company running at peak momentum. He ran the company’s ‘superalignment’ effort to make AI ultimately safer before it became really real. Utter mistrust in the ‘Invisible Hand’ of markets driven by and for humans to ultimately figure out the right paths for societal good. He now expresses deep regret on his participation in the OpenAI board’s actions.

It led to what in my view will be but a blip in the commercialization of the AI Tech Wave for net societal good, bigger than most other tech waves that have come before. As I said earlier, the AI toothpaste is out of the bottle, and the world is well on its way to building on its promises and around its perils, with or without OpenAI. Including geopolitical rivals.

Venerable tech VC Vinod Khosla, the first venture investor in OpenAI, said it well in an op-ed on these events today:

“Large, world-changing vision is axiomatically risky. It can even be scary. But it is the sole lever by which the human condition has improved throughout history. And we could destroy that potential with academic talk of nonsensical existential risk in my view.”

We need to be mindful of this academic navel-gazing fear, and balance it with the affirmative potential of AI technologies in particular. Especially if that Fear is transmitted to mainstream users and regulators BEFORE the technologies are even baked and anywhere close to their eventual potential. Yes, EVEN with the exponential curves of AI ahead of us. Even while we barely understands how and why it works.

It’s a view echoed by other VCs like Marc Andreessen and the tribe termed ‘techno-optimists’. I’ve put in my two cents in that camp as well. Because without pushing technology, human possibilities are far more finite. And we have infinite opportunities ahead of us.

AI is just one of many technologies accelerating us along the way. So let’s continue to keep the fear in perspective, especially by those creating the technologies. Stay tuned.

(NOTE: The discussions here are for information purposes only, and not meant as investment advice at any time. Thanks for joining us here)