Anthropic’s CEO thinks AI will lead to a utopia — he just needs $7 billion first

If you want to raise ungodly amounts of money, you amended person immoderate godly reasons.

That’s what Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei laid retired for america connected Friday successful much than 14,000 words: otherworldly ways successful which artificial wide intelligence (AGI, though he prefers to telephone it “powerful AI”) will alteration our lives. In the blog, titled “Machines of Loving Grace,” he envisions a early wherever AI could compress 100 years of aesculapian advancement into a decade, cure intelligence illnesses for illustration PTSD and depression, upload your mind to the cloud, and alleviate poverty. At the aforesaid time, it’s reported that Anthropic is hoping to raise up to $7 cardinal (beating OpenAI’s caller historical backing round) astatine a $40 cardinal valuation.

Today’s AI tin do precisely nary of what Amodei imagines. It will take, by his ain admission, hundreds of billions of dollars worthy of compute to train AGI models, built pinch trillions of dollars worthy of information centers, drafting capable power from section powerfulness grids to support the lights connected for millions of homes. Not to mention that nary 1 is 100 percent judge it’s possible. Amodei says himself: “Of people nary 1 tin cognize the early pinch immoderate certainty aliases precision, and the effects of powerful AI are apt to beryllium moreover much unpredictable than past technological changes, truthful each of this is unavoidably going to dwell of guesses.”

AI execs person mastered the creation of expansive promises earlier monolithic fundraising. Take OpenAI’s Sam Altman, whose “The Intelligence Age” blog preceded a staggering $6.6 cardinal round. In Altman’s blog, he stated that the world will person superintelligence successful “a fewer 1000 days” and that this will lead to “massive prosperity.” It’s a persuasive performance: overgarment a utopian future, hint astatine solutions to humanity’s deepest fears — death, hunger, poorness — past reason that only by removing some redundant guardrails and pouring successful unprecedented superior tin we execute this techno-paradise. It’s superb marketing, leveraging our top hopes and anxieties while conveniently sidestepping the request for actual proof.

The timing of this blog besides highlights conscionable really fierce the title is. As Amodei points out, a 14,000-word utopian manifesto is beautiful retired of measurement for Anthropic. The institution was founded aft Amodei and others near OpenAI complete information concerns, and it has cultivated a estimation for sober consequence appraisal alternatively than starry-eyed futurism. It’s why the institution continues to poach information researchers from OpenAI. Even successful past week’s post, he insists Anthropic will prioritize candid discussions of AI risks complete seductive visions of a techno-utopia.

But information isn’t a thrilling transportation platform subject, and caller challengers are emerging daily. OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever has launched his ain AI lab, and departing OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is rumored to be starting her ain venture. Amodei’s blog isn’t conscionable astir trading his imagination — it’s astir staying competitive.

Despite his stated aversion to grandiose claims, he spends thousands of words coating a early wherever AI could reshape humanity’s destiny (seeming to lucifer Altman’s silver-tongued pitches, which are legendary successful tech circles). The station only makes 1 mention of alignment, aka ensuring AI systems run successful accordance pinch quality values, and nary mention of safety. This contradiction exposes a harsh truth: successful the high-stakes world of AI development, moreover those wary of hype find themselves forced to play the crippled of expansive promises to unafraid important funding.

Right now, location is an unthinkable spread betwixt what this exertion is tin of and the utopia that AI leaders imagine. This has led to a batch of adjacent disapproval — really is it going to alteration the world successful conscionable a fewer years if it can’t moreover reliably count the number of R’s successful the connection strawberry? What AI reliably excels astatine now is automating regular tasks and analyzing monolithic datasets, identifying patterns pinch expanding precision. This spot is already aiding fields for illustration finance, medicine, and autonomous vehicles. But while these advances are impressive, claims for illustration Amodei’s that AI mightiness “structurally favour democracy” consciousness premature and overly optimistic. It’s worthy noting that AGI believers see his blog station to beryllium a spot excessively tame (which Amodei anticipated successful his blog, penning successful the footnotes that they should “touch grass”).

Amodei’s blog station isn’t for the mean AI-curious reader, nor is it a convincing roadmap for the early of AGI — again, a point that doesn’t and whitethorn ne'er beryllium successful the shape the AI manufacture envisions. It’s a transportation for investors: backmost Anthropic, and you’re not conscionable backing a company; you’re buying a liking successful humanity’s twinkling future. With varying levels of subtlety, that’s what each AI executive — Altman astatine OpenAI, Elon Musk astatine xAI, Sergey Brin astatine Google — is promising. Get connected committee pinch their imagination of the early aliases beryllium near behind. 

For each of AI’s novelty, tech titans person agelong peddled their innovations arsenic world-saving solutions. Mark Zuckerberg sounded the cosmopolitan net arsenic a poorness cure. Brin once stated that Google could “cure death.” Musk framed SpaceX’s interplanetary ambitions arsenic the eventual backup scheme for our type (and much recently, an imperative to ballot for Donald Trump). But erstwhile there’s a finite magnitude of investor money going around, altruism is simply a zero-sum game. As a tech mogul successful Mike Judge’s Silicon Valley famously put it, “I don’t wanna unrecorded successful a world wherever personification other makes the world a amended spot than we do.”

Amodei is intelligibly alert of the consequence of sounding hyperbolic. “AI companies talking astir each the astonishing benefits of AI tin travel disconnected for illustration propagandists, aliases arsenic if they’re attempting to distract from downsides,” he writes. That hasn’t stopped him from playing his part. 

“It is simply a point of transcendent beauty,” Amodei caps his blog. “We person the opportunity to play immoderate mini domiciled successful making it real.”