The optimists point out that history has proved the doomsayers wrong countless times. Take the printing press: the 15th-century Catholic church worried that the spread of information would undermine authority and stability across Europe; some intellectuals worried that information would be dangerous in the hands of the plebs; craft guilds opposed the democratisation of their skills via manuals. In the end the printing press did enable harms - the publication of a witch-hunting manual in 1486 paved the way for centuries of persecution of women suspected of being witches - but they were utterly dwarfed by its enlightenment benefits. Modern-day luddite is not an attractive mantle and at the first global AI safety summit in the UK this week there was expected to be a lot of industry pressure on politicians to drop the doomerism and join the cool gang.
This story is from the November 03, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the November 03, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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