Currently reading: What If We Get Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. The core of the book is a collection of interviews, including one with Mustafa Suleyman on the topic of AI. (Suleyman at one time was Google’s VP of AI product management and AI policy.) I’m more skeptical of Suleyman’s statements than Johnson seems to be.
Some of my issues with the Suleyman interview:
- AI chat apps don’t “interact with humans,” any more than an echo interacts with humans.
- Why does Suleyman dismiss universal basic income so glibly, when data shows it works? (Later in the interview he says “We have to embrace the reality of profit” and claims anti-capitalism is harming the climate movement.)
- Oh, and stop talking mean about tech folks, he says. You’re hurting the environment.
- Suleyman agrees that AI needs to be regulated, but says we need regulators “who are deeply embedded in the technical details, who are able to move quickly, make mistakes, get it wrong, change course” — which sounds like techbros who “move fast and break things” and who will back off the minute the industry says “You’re slowing us down, man.”
- Talking about how AI can help data centers manage their massive energy needs efficiently is like talking about how the dragon can help with the delivery of the 29 villagers per hour it needs to devour.
- This statement aged badly: “Both OpenAI and then Anthropic, the two main companies that came after us, and now my new company Inflection, all of us are focused on the question, What does safety look like?”
- So many follow-up questions Johnson doesn’t ask!
To be clear, overall I think this is an important and useful book. But I have quibbles.