Here at WIRED we’ve been trying to make sense of at least two incidents in the AI industry this week: First, the major fight over a million-dollar math problem and whether OpenAI surreptitiously borrowed the work of other researchers to solve the problem first. A day later, an Anthropic researcher—who had previously worked at OpenAI—very publicly quit his job, citing concerns about how both companies were handling AI safety. Another technical staffer at Anthropic said in response that people at the company “really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.” (Note the exclamation point.)
\n\nThe internet erupted into a debate about whether these fears are very legitimate, totally overblown, part of a regulatory capture strategy, or self-aggrandizement on the part of the AI labs that make the tech. Or some combination thereof.
\n\nOne prominent technology and AI researcher, Timnit Gebru, has been especially fiery, posting on X and Bluesky about the overlapping ideas and ideologies that she thinks led us to this bizarro moment. Previously, Gebru was most known for her highly publicized departure from Google. Hired in 2018 to evaluate biases within the company’s fast-advancing AI tools, she…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/