Lord of the AIs

“A group of prepubescent British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves that lead to a descent into savagery. The novel’s themes include morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos.” That’s the plot of Lord of the Flies, but it could just as easily be the coming plot of the race toward AI dominance. Like the kids stranded on the fictional island, in the Lord of the AIs, the rules of the new BYOG (Bring Your Own Guardrails) society are being set by insiders. Anthropic is the major AI player known for being the most worried about the “civilizational concerns” associated with its tech. Maybe that’s just a branding strategy, or maybe they’re just being compared to the likes of Zuck and Musk. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they really are the most concerned of the AI giants. “When Anthropic launched Claude, in 2023, the bot’s distinguishing feature was a ‘Constitution’ that the model was trained on detailing how it should behave; last week, Anthropic revamped the document into a 22,000-word treatise on how to make Claude a moral and sincere actor. Claude, the constitution’s authors write, has the ability to foster emotional dependence, design bioweapons, and manipulate its users, so it’s Anthropic’s responsibility to instill upright character in Claude to avoid these outcomes.” But, ultimately, the race is on. And the rules of the race are being made by its participants, not by governments, and certainly not by end users. Ultimately, those rules may be made by the very technologies the absence of outside rules enabled. Matteo Wong in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Anthropic Is at War With Itself. “The AI company shouting about AI’s dangers can’t quite bring itself to slow down.” (And that’s the point. This is all about self-regulation. They’re the only ones who currently have the power to slow themselves down.)

+ While William Golding’s fictional version of boys in a guardrail-free society didn’t go well, the real story of a group of schoolboys stranded alone on an Island had a much happier plotline. “The teenage runaways showed remarkable resourcefulness—building a hut out of palm fronds, establishing a garden with bananas and beans, and setting up a roster to keep a lookout for passing ships. They even built a badminton court and a makeshift gym. They lived in harmony—they told us—most of the time.” Of course, those self-ruling teenagers didn’t have billions of dollars at stake or a cast of competitors that had already proven themselves lacking when it comes to themes such as morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos. I guess we’ll see how things turn out this time…