Silicon Valley Law Group Blog
I am excited this year once again to chair the American Bar Association Artificial Intelligence and Robotics National Institute October 12-13 at Santa Clara Law School near San Jose, California. Silicon Valley Group is proud to be an Institute sponsor again.
The world is changing before our eyes as a shockwave of headlines around the world sets off alarms about the risk that superintelligence might extinguish humanity. And yes, the Institute will in fact have a panel talk about the risks of superintelligence. In mid-June, I started planning a panel about the present risks of rogue AI agents developed by businesses large and small causing damage in the short run and extrapolating those risks into the future to consider what harm superintelligence might cause in future decades, especially in light of the impending implementation of recursive self-improvement (powerful AI training other AI systems to become yet more powerful).
On September 8, however, an Anthropic researcher resigned his position and warned the world about the possibility of superintelligence destroying humanity. Suddenly, my dangerous AI topic was top of mind for U.S. presidents, AI leaders, industry executives, and the major mass media, and a wide swath of the population. Consequently, I am pivoting the panel a bit to meet the moment. We will cover the hack by a swarm of Hugging Face systems by rogue OpenAI agents. We still plan to discuss risks to the world of recursive self-improvement. And we will consider the long-run future of superintelligence in light of the apparent acceleration of the technology timeline. I will present some legal and policy options to address the grave risks of superintelligence. My hope is that plotting a careful course can allow humanity can receive the potentially miraculous benefits of powerful AI while avoiding harm and its most serious dangers.