Cell phones made my life easier. So did the internet.
Artificial intelligence may enrich it even more.
But lots of people are worried.
“Stop AI or we’re all going to die!” shout protesters.
It’s possible that AI will decide that we humans are in the way and imprison us or kill us. Not likely, say AI specialists, but possible.
Anthropic’s CEO just warned that AI is advancing faster than our ability to control it. He and other AI executives say they want to slow it down.
He proposes embedding independent “evaluators” inside his company to assess risks. He also wants international coordination and federal regulation that would slow his competitors’ innovations too.
Has that ever worked? I don’t think so.
“The anti-AI movement makes all the same mistakes as the anti-fossil fuel movement,” says author Alex Epstein in my new video. “They deny the huge benefits of something and totally exaggerate the hazards and ignore all the ways we have of solving them.”
Street protesters worry about cooling water used by data centers that power AI. But data centers account for a fraction of a percent of U.S. water use (0.04% in 2024).
Also, they can use recycled water.
Some people worry that data centers’ demand for power will raise electricity prices.
“We can definitely do AI in a way that keeps electricity prices the same,” says Epstein. “But it’s going to require a reversal of the anti-electricity policies that have gotten us in this situation.”
Like closing nuclear plants and forcing use of renewable energy.
“With AI,” says Epstein, “We’ve screwed ourselves unnecessarily. Enact policies that make it easier to build electricity capacity and make it easy for AI to build its own private grids.”
Why not?
“It’s not that there are no concerns,” notes Epstein, “but data centers can be a dream asset to the community that basically just sits in a corner and prints money … people have no idea what they’re thinking about foregoing … a lot of your job that you consider drudgery, like a teacher spending 50% of her time grading or a nurse filling out medical forms. Those people can start to delegate that to AI, which makes them better teachers, better nurses.”
AI will also eliminate some jobs. But predictions about technology killing lots of jobs or most jobs have repeatedly been proven wrong.
We were told automation would cause 15% unemployment. Automation happened. Now there are more jobs!
Adam Thierer, author of “Permissionless Innovation,” says, “History shows us that technology has been a friend of humanity and utilized for great good. That will include AI … if we allow it.”
Will we?
Bernie Sanders wants government to take “50% ownership.”
“If the government owns half,” says Thierer, “we’re probably not going to develop very good AI. Government doesn’t have a very good history of creating hot new technologies that serve the public well. I don’t think we want the U.S. Post Office running our internet or communications networks and we don’t want to have Bernie Sanders … controlling our AI robotic systems.”
If American companies do slow AI, innovation won’t just stop.
“If we get this wrong,” says Thierer, “the Chinese are there waiting … They’re spending a lot of money to be the global leader … their values will come baked into their systems: censorship, surveillance and control.”
China does say: all AI must adhere to “core socialist values.”
“Whoever wins AI, wins,” says President Donald Trump. He doesn’t want the United States to slow AI innovation. I think he’s right about this.
AI will shape what billions of us understand about the world. We want technologies of freedom to win.
Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Government Gone Wild: Exposing the Truth Behind the Headlines.”
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