(Mis)Anthropic CEO claims AI will be "better than almost all humans at almost all things"
WTF is he talking about?!?!?
This week the global elite met once again at Davos to discuss how to turn current events to their advantage at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.
Amongst insightful sessions such as, 'A Conversation with 2025 Crystal Awardee David Beckham' and 'What happens when humans and robots make art together?', the CEO of AI company Anthropic, Dario Amodei, took part in a panel called 'Technology In The World' and, with or without irony, made one of the most misanthropic statements I have ever heard:
“It is my guess that by 2026 or 2027, we will have AI systems that are broadly better than almost all humans at almost all things.”
This statement is part of a pattern of misanthropic messaging that is invading public discourse and, I think, having a depressive effect on humans who, having spent the last couple of decades comparing themselves with each other on social media, are now having to compare themselves with machines too.
But what does Amodei even mean by "better”? I am terrible at maths, the most basic pocket calculator is already better than me at all sums - so what? Does that make me a lesser human? No, it means I probably shouldn't try and be an accountant but that's fine because I have other skills and talents to offer. But Amodei believes that AI systems will be better than us at "all things", in fact he seems almost eager for it to be so but I still don’t understand his meaning. Better at loving, caring, comforting or reproducing? Better at creating communities, a sense of belonging or self-worth perhaps? Or does he simply mean better at creating shareholder value?
"Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity – technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history."
Ray Kurzweil, Futurist and Director of Engineering at Google
"There is no reason and no way that a human mind can keep up with an artificial intelligence machine by 2035."
Gray Scott, Futurist and Techno-Philosopher
One of the many problems with pronouncements such as these, in fact the primary problem, is that they come from the people who stand to gain the most from making them. The ‘Technology In The World’ panel was filled with AI enthusiasts who are uniformly optimistic about the future of this and every other technology because their careers, income and equity stakes depend on it. But it is important that we invite skeptics on to panels too, not to be Debbie Downers but to provide much-needed balance.
This, I presume, was the role of moderator Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic who, midway through the panel commented, “This is an optimistic panel so let me try to change the mood a bit if possible”, and was greeted with an audible sigh from President and Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet & Google, Ruth Porat, before going on to ask an inconvenient question about the impact of AI and data centres on climate change. She clearly thinks skepticism of any kind is unwarranted but when Amoedi makes claims like the one below they NEED to be challenged:
"I think a doubling of the human life span is not at all crazy and then, if AI is able to accelerate that, we may be able to get that in five to ten years."
Sure Amoedi, whatever, but my immediate follow up question would be; what are we going to do for 180 years if AI can do EVERYTHING better than us? How are we going to support ourselves because sure-as-shit no one is going pay for us to to sit and "make art" all day or whatever it is these people assume we want to do, which is apparently completely different to what they want to do, which is to keep working despite all being millionaires many times over.
In a 2024 study entitled, ‘Associations between meaning in life and suicidal ideation in young people’, meaning in life was found to be significantly associated with suicidal ideation in young people. Furthermore, the association between meaning in life and suicidal ideation is stronger in high-income and individualist countries compared to upper-middle-income and collectivist countries. This may go some way to explaining why, according to the CDC, the suicide rate in the highest-income and most individualistic country on Earth has rocketed by 30% since 2000 and why 70% of Gen Z there told the American Psychological Association (APA) they were suffering from burnout.
Telling people, especially young people, that they will never be as good as machines, that their skills have no value and that they must find something else to do with their 180 years of potential life is not the answer to a crisis of meaning. The message needs to change. Humans have value beyond their capacity to drive share prices up and it’s about time the shareholder class recognised that.
To Do List
My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do.
GRRRLS! TO THE FRONT, a concert featuring female-led indie rock bands from Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia is happening on Saturday 9th Feb at Glass Dome in China Street. Check out the bands and get your tickets to join me here: https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/grrrls-to-the-front-tickets-1121024968859.
A couple weeks ago I reported on an open letter signed by 88 writers and sent to Singapore’s National Library Bored, complaining about their “uncritical endorsement” of AI. The NLB invited the signatories to an open meeting at the Central Library where they made their case, which activist Ng Yi-Sheng rebuts in his latest Substack post below:
Another amazing Substack I have found (there’s loads!), is Charting Gen AI by Graham Lovelace who published an absolute must-read this week on critical developments in UK and US AI copyright regulation that have the power to set precedents for the world…
Finally, I wrote a piece for The Orient magazine that has just been published online under the heading ‘Sloppy Humans Over AI Slop: Why being Pro-Human will make your brand shine’. Have a read at https://publuu.com/flip-book/715575/1736313/page/22, and if your company, publication or event would like to hear more from me on this topic check out https://www.neal-moore.com/.
That’ll do ya, Nx
Always remember that "better" means "more profitable" to the uber rich. And that's all it means. Not more effective, not more beautiful, not a benefit to the world, not even necessarily true ... just more profitable.
Another great consideration, Neal! Yeah, define “better” …,