Ep. 1837 - Only A Few People Win from AI Hysteria. Everyone Else Loses.

**Matt Walsh** (0:00)
Opinions on AI seem to be, to put it mildly, sharply divided. But one thing we should all be able to agree on, a statement that should attract a wide consensus, is that this is an incredibly consequential technology, advancing and scaling at enormous speeds, and both the benefits it provides and the threat it potentially poses should be seriously considered in an objective, sober-minded way. If we can agree on nothing else when it comes to AI, or anything else, we should be able to agree on that. It's not a political statement, it's not an ideological statement, and yet sober-minded objectivity is the very last thing we're seeing on this subject from either side of the debate, and the events of this week perfectly illustrate that point. So let's start with those events, which immediately reveal why sober minds are not prevailing and why they desperately need to. There is a colossal amount of money and power at stake. For example, let's say that you're a massive, privately held artificial intelligence company, and you're planning a blockbuster IPO in a matter of months, which will probably value your company at several trillion dollars. You have every incentive to promote your product and to convince as many people as possible to sign up and pay a subscription fee. Why in this scenario would you go on national television and tell everybody that your product has the potential to eliminate all of humanity within the next decade? Why would you deliberately torpedo public confidence in the entire AI industry at a pivotal moment for your company? You know, it seems a bit like a Taco Bell announcing a new burrito by explaining in great detail how it's going to absolutely demolish your intestines and potentially all of the intestines on earth. Doesn't seem logical. Seems like self-sabotage, and yet, that's exactly what Anthropic, which makes the AI model known as Claude, has apparently just done, providing an incredible window into how the most powerful corporations on the planet can manipulate public opinion and the variety of tactics they use to push more government regulation and control over the economy.
So this was an op.
There's no question about it, and it was a very successful one. And yet, and this is where we need those sober minds to come in, the concerns that are being raised, even if they're being raised for less than benevolent reasons, still should be taken seriously. And the very fact that they're being raised at all, whether genuinely or not, create a scenario where no matter what's actually going on, it's pretty bad. And I'll explain why in a few moments.
But here's how it began. And this timeline was largely put together by a researcher named Parker Thayer. So on Tuesday evening, just before 8 p.m. Eastern, The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive story with the very alarming headline, Anthropic Researcher Quits Over Out-of-Control AI Fears. Concerns are rising inside AI labs. The competition is pushing tech companies to race towards self-improving models that risk spiraling out of human control. The article states that, quote, Jacob Cokson, a researcher who specializes in training new AI models by having them consume vast amounts of data, said Tuesday, that he is leaving the company because he doesn't want to participate in an industry-wide rush to build AI systems that can improve themselves, worried such systems could spiral out of control and destroy humanity.
This article is about a 27-year-old who, as the article eventually mentions, left OpenAI earlier this year to join Anthropic because it's known for its model safety efforts. So in other words, Jacob Cokson was working at Anthropic's competitor OpenAI until very recently. He was at OpenAI for about three years before coming over to Anthropic earlier this year. Based on all the reporting I've seen, he's been at the company for around five months at the most. So after a very short stint as an entry level employee, he's already become a whistleblower somehow. He's sounding the alarm about how AI is going to destroy the entire human race.
This is an unusual timeline, to put it mildly. For most entry level employees, when you start at a new company, you spend the first few months finding your way around the building. You're trying to meet new people, trying to figure out your commute, that kind of thing. But for this guy, after a very short period of time, he was ready to quit in the most flamboyant, splashy way imaginable, complete with an exclusive article in The Wall Street Journal announcing his departure. And on top of that, the Wall Street Journal doesn't even mention that the guy is brand new to the company until the 10th paragraph.