Student activist warning of Al's reach unnerves tech bros for good reasons

Trump’s dinner with execs leaves little hope of meaningful regulation

- ANITA CHABRIA COLUMNIST

SWETHA REVANUR SNEHA REVANUR has successfully lobbied for curbs affecting AI.

Sneha Revanur has been called the “Greta Thunberg of AI,” which, depending on your politics, is an insult or, as the youngs would say, means she’s eating.

That's good.

Either way, Revanur, a 20-year-old Stanford University senior who grew up in Silicon Valley, isn’t worried about personal attacks, though she’s been getting more of them lately — especially from some big tech bros who wish she'd shut up about artificial intelligence and its potential to accidentally (or purposefully) destroy us all.

Instead of fretting about invoking the ire of some of the most powerful men on the planet, she’s staying focused on the breakneck speed with which AI is advancing; the utter ignorance, even resistance, of politicians when it comes to putting in place the most basic of safety measures to control it; and what all that will mean for kids who will grow up under its influence.

CARLIN STIEHL Los Angeles Times HONORING HEROISM AND LIVES LOST Sept. 11 responder Roland Cook walks among some of the hundreds of American flags at the 10th Annual Field of Glory in Azusa.

“Whatever long-term future AI creates, whether that’s positive or negative, it’s [my generation] that’s going to experience that," she told me. "We're going to inherit the impacts of the technology we're building today." This week, California will make a big decision about that future, as legislators vote on state Senate Bill 53.

Because I am a tech idiot who struggles to even change the brightness on my phone's display, I will use the simplest of metaphors, which I am sure will make engineers wince.