Destination Unknown

“A 16-year-old solo hiker had to be rescued Saturday from a mountain near Vancouver after getting stranded while following a route he had planned with the help of AI.” Artificial intelligence may not be good at everything, but this story proves it’s definitely got metaphors down. We are headed to an uncertain destination on a map created by people talking about technologies we don’t understand. Stephen Witt on the guy who might have the most say when it comes to mapping the route forward. He’s the Most Powerful Engineer on Earth. Here’s Why He Thinks A.I. Is Going Great. “The phone call, which had the feel of an orchestrated publicity stunt, was a public declaration of Mr. Trump’s resistance to A.I. regulation. But where others saw the president taking a forceful stand, I saw Mr. Huang engineering the president. The input was shameless public flattery: in the phone call, Mr. Huang called Mr. Trump “sir,” praised Mr. Trump’s intellect (“You know so much about A.I.,”) and stoked Mr. Trump’s bottomless need for validation. (“Did you hear that? Thousands of people are clapping for you.”) And the output? Little regulation on A.I. and freedom to export some of Nvidia’s hardware to China, and whatever else Mr. Huang wants. This situation worries me. Mr. Huang is the most capable individual I have ever met — but, I fear, A.I. is more capable still.”