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What Are the Implications if the AI Boom Turns to Bust?

This episode considers whether today’s massive AI investment boom reflects real economic fundamentals or an unsustainable bubble, and how a potential crash could reshape AI policy, public sentiment, and narratives about the future that are embraced and advanced not only by Silicon Valley billionaires, but also by politicians and governments. 

AI Now is Hiring a Data Center Policy Fellow

AI Now Hosts Report Launch and Organizer Panel on Using Policy to Stop Data Center Expansion

Atoms for Algorithms:’ The Trump Administration’s Top Nuclear Scientists Think AI Can Replace Humans in Power Plants

Power Companies Are Using AI To Build Nuclear Power Plants

Both Guerra and Khlaaf are proponents of nuclear energy, but worry that the proliferation of LLMs, the fast tracking of nuclear licenses, and the AI-driven push to build more plants is dangerous. “Nuclear energy is safe. It is safe, as we use it. But it’s safe because we make it safe and it’s safe because we spend a lot of time doing the licensing and we spend a lot of time learning from the things that go wrong and understanding where it went wrong and we try to address it next time,” Guerra said.

You May Already Be Bailing Out the AI Business

Is an artificial-intelligence bubble about to pop? The question of whether we’re in for a replay of the 2008 housing collapse—complete with bailouts at taxpayers’ expense—has saturated the news cycle. For every day that passes without disaster, AI companies can more persuasively insist that no such market correction is coming. But the federal government is already bailing out the AI industry with regulatory changes and public funds that will protect companies in the event of a private sector pullback.

The fusing of AI firms and the state is leading to a dangerous concentration of power

With all of this in mind, Hard Reset spoke with researcher Sarah West, the co-executive director of a think tank advocating for an AI that benefits the public interest, not just a select few. We discuss this consolidation of power among a few AI players—and how the government is actually hindering the development of healthier competition and consumer-friendly AI products, while flirting with financial disaster.

The Destruction in Gaza Is What the Future of AI Warfare Looks Like

“AI systems, and generative AI models in particular, are notoriously flawed with high error rates for any application that requires precision, accuracy, and safety-criticality,” Dr. Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, told Gizmodo. “AI outputs are not facts; they’re predictions. The stakes are higher in the case of military activity, as you’re now dealing with lethal targeting that impacts the life and death of individuals.”

ChatGPT safety systems can be bypassed to get weapons instructions

“That OpenAI’s guardrails are so easily tricked illustrates why it’s particularly important to have robust pre-deployment testing of AI models before they cause substantial harm to the public,” said Sarah Meyers West, a co-executive director at AI Now, a nonprofit group that advocates for responsible and ethical AI usage.

The Rise and Fall of Nvidia’s Geopolitical Strategy

China’s Cyberspace Administration last month banned companies from purchasing Nvidia’s H20 chips, much to the chagrin of its CEO Jensen Huang. This followed a train wreck of events that unfolded over the summer.

Anthropic Has a Plan to Keep Its AI From Building a Nuclear Weapon. Will It Work?

For Heidy Khlaaf, the chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute with a background in nuclear safety, Anthropic’s promise that Claude won’t help someone build a nuke is both a magic trick and security theater. She says that a large language model like Claude is only as good as its training data. And if Claude never had access to nuclear secrets to begin with, then the classifier is moot.

AI Now’s Partnership and Strategy Lead Alli Finn Testifies at the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Technology and Information Services

AI Now Co-ED Amba Kak Gives Remarks Before the UN General Assembly on AI Governance

How AI safety took a backseat to military money

AI firms are now working with weapons makers and the military. Safety expert Heidy Khlaaf breaks down what that means.

ASML-Mistral AI: It’s the Geopolitics, Stupid

While subsidies and an EU Chips Act have failed to move the needle, this deal is a blueprint for something better: It plays to Europe’s existing strengths, shows there are alternatives to what AI researcher Leevi Saari calls the “voracious pressures” of US venture capital and strengthens EU suppliers.

Decision in US vs. Google Gets it Wrong on Generative AI

Gesturing towards the importance of generative AI in the search engine market then dismissing its actual effects is a dangerous precedent. It is true that tech markets are being shaped by generative AI. But in this case the court failed to accurately examine the broader AI market and the effects of consolidated power.

AI is costing jobs, but not always the way you think

Demand for AI is strong, but there’s no guarantee this gamble will pay off according to Sarah Myers West at the AI Now Institute.

She’s investigating the safety and security of AI weapons systems.

Besides being error-prone, there’s another big problem with large language models in these kinds of situations: They’re vulnerable to being compromised, which could allow adversaries to hijack systems and impact military decisions. Despite these known issues, militaries all over the world are increasingly using AI—an alarming reality that now drives the work of pioneering AI safety researcher Heidy Khlaaf.