Opinion: The real AI nightmare – What if it serves humans too well?

To make sure AI does only what humans desire, a lot of time, money, and effort is being invested. Yet, AI that will do as humans desire is something we should be more concerned about. Who is the real threat? — Getty Images/TNS

The age of artificial intelligence has begun, and it brings plenty of new anxieties. A lot of effort and money are being devoted to ensuring that AI will do only what humans want. But what we should be more afraid of is AI that will do what humans want. The real danger is us.

That’s not the risk that the industry is striving to address. In February, an entire company – named Synth Labs – was founded for the express purpose of “AI alignment”, making it behave exactly as humans intend. Its investors include M12, owned by Microsoft, and First Start Ventures, founded by former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has promised 20% of its processing power to “superalignment” that would “steer and control AI systems much smarter than us”. Big tech is all over this.