Authored by David McGarry via RealClearMarkets,
Geniuses are an odd species. To paraphrase Montesquieu, the exceptional are often also a bit loony. Cornelius Vanderbilt, a devotee of spiritualism, believed himself to have communicated with the spirit of George Washington. To improve his health, Henry Ford devoured weeds, and Thomas Alva Edison was averse to bathing. The point: geniuses are an odd species, who, for all the indispensability of their works to American prosperity and innovation, ought not be trusted credulously. Today in Washington, D.C., Congress must endeavor to protect artificial intelligence (AI) from the technologists most prominent in its creation.
Anthropic's Dario Amodei desires the U.S. government (an agent of compulsion) to dictate the "pace" of innovation, as the CEO wrote this month. "I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence - not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up." Amodei warns of impending catastrophe should innovation continue at its current rate. Yet
