There have been some shocking claims in recent days about AI safety: we face a 10% chance of doom; AIs are worse than nukes; a “botnet” threatens the entire internet; it’s all a big tech psyop.
But Heidy Khlaaf, chief scientist at the AI Now Institute research body, is among experts sceptical about giving percentage chances to existential scenarios.
“These claims are neither falsifiable nor verifiable, making then unscientific by their very nature,” she said. The shortage of concrete examples of what a “superintelligent” AI might do to cause “doom” only adds to the cloudiness. A source familiar with Anthropic’s thinking acknowledges that “the exact chances of any one outcome are probably unknowable”.
“If you cannot provide such evidence, it also implies whatever numbers you produced for ‘extinction’ have no scientific basis,” Khlaaf added. Critics say such numbers borrow the authority of science without doing the work.
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