In The Absence of a High IQ President, AI Will Need Guardrails - Now

Over the weekend, Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei called for the development of AI to be slowed down.

This comes only days after Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic and expressed dire concerns about how the pace at which both Anthropic and ChatGPT are advancing AI. In an interview Coxon stated, "It's doing God knows what, and producing stuff that could kill everyone."

Today, President Trump saw fit to weigh in on Truth Social stating in part:

The only control or “guardrails” that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!

Needless to say, Trump's flatulent self-flattery does not inspire confidence. 

If we did have a High IQ President, that President would be smart enough to be on board with reining in AI. But this is Trump with whom we are dealing. He doesn't care if AI could kill everyone. He certainly didn't give a damn about stopping COVID from killing over a million Americans. It was Trump who said, "If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any." These are not the words of a President with a High IQ.

In the absence of a High IQ President, governments and tech sector will need to collaborate to implement AI guardrails as soon as possible. And by as soon as possible, I mean now. We might only have a matter of weeks to get a handle on it. Time is at hand.

Trump does raise the matter of China and its development of AI. If we restrain ourselves, it doesn't mean China will. But Trump advances this argument as if Amodei hasn't thought it through. Indeed, I doubt Trump actually read what Amodei wrote. Had he done so then he would know that Amodei calls for us to refrain from selling China AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment and chip smuggling operations. But since when does Trump operate in good faith?

I must admit that I have written precious little about AI. Perhaps I have been avoiding the inevitable. But it is a part of most workplaces including my own and will soon involve nearly every facet of life. My Dad talks to AI about baseball. The AI genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back in. So, either we control AI or AI will control us