Niall Ferguson and Tyler Cowen: AIpocalypse Now? Plus. . .
It’s Monday, September 14. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Coleman Hughes on converting Ku Klux Klan members. Chris Wright on how to win the energy race. Arthur Brooks on when tragedy brings us together—and when it doesn’t. All that and more.
But first: Sounding the AI alarm.
Last year, I saw a chart that has been stuck in my head ever since. It was published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and it looked like this:
What it shows, in graphic form, is the bewilderingly wide range of ways AI could transform our lives: It could lead to never-before-seen prosperity (that’s the red line), it could give us something like the normal rate of economic growth (the orange and green lines), or it could end the human race (the purple line).
The chart stayed with me because it tells, in stark terms, not just an economic story, but the story of our time: the creation, by us, of something smarter than us, and the profound and unpredictable ways in which that could change what it means to be human.
For a week now, the headlines have been fixated on the single most alarming question in this conversation: Could AI kill us all?
Last week, a researcher resigned from Anthropic, warning that the top AI companies were advancing the technology at a dangerous speed. Over the weekend, something remarkable happened: The heads of those companies more or less conceded the point. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced his company’s plans to slow its development of cutting-edge AI. Then his rivals Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI said they agreed.
In a matter of hours, a new consensus among some of the most important people on the planet had revealed itself. It is a consensus about the most high-stakes question imaginable. It is worth taking seriously, and interrogating thoroughly. That is what Niall Ferguson and Tyler Cowen do in our lead stories today.
First, Niall Ferguson takes us through the latest unnerving AI developments, the forces driving the chances of catastrophe higher, and what, if anything, we can do about it. Don’t miss this deep dive into the most important issue in the world right now.
Tyler Cowen is not one to follow the herd. He has long been skeptical of the doomsaying around the new technology and, as he explains in his column today, the last few days have not changed that. Tyler argues that the slowdown announced by the AI titans is not what it seems. Read his latest to understand why.
—Oliver Wiseman
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
An Iranian vessel was struck on the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. State-run news agency INRA blamed a “terrorist attack,” which came just before Iran’s diplomatic meeting with several Gulf countries about reopening the strait. The meeting was postponed.
A Russian drone struck a Ukrainian train shortly after former British prime minister Boris Johnson and retired U.S. general David Petraeus passed through on a different train. No casualties were reported, but Ukrainian Railways said that the earlier train could have been the drone’s target.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday that the “Trump dividend” announced by the president last week would require congressional approval. Trump promised “every adult American citizen” $5,000 if the Republicans win control of the House and Senate in November.
Dude 44 Bravo, the U.S. Air Force officer shot down by Iran in April, told 60 Minutes that his survival was a “modern-day miracle.” The officer, who was identified only by his mission call sign, hid for two days despite a broken arm, back, and shoulder after free-falling to the ground.
Preliminary results from Sweden’s elections showed the center-left party with a tiny advantage over the ascendant populist right. If those results hold, it would be a rare boon for the European left, as right-wing parties like Germany’s AfD win record numbers across the continent.
American tennis player Ben Shelton lost to German Alexander Zverev in the U.S. Open men’s final on Sunday. No American man has won the tournament since Andy Roddick in 2003. On Saturday, Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan won the women’s title over Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
Canadian pop star Céline Dion performed her comeback show in Paris on Saturday. A rare neurological condition sidelined her for six years.