Clash of AI Giants... The Hidden Motives Behind 'Human Extinction' Warnings

[Anchor]

Heads of top industry players Anthropic and Nvidia have clashed over claims that the pace of AI development should be slowed down. While the debate outwardly centers on safety, more complex motives are hidden beneath the surface.

Morning Zoom-in, reported by Choi Seung-hun.

[Reporter]

[Dario Amodei / CEO of Anthropic: We must inspect ourselves first. We need to improve practices, enhance transparency, and invest more in safety.]

[Jensen Huang / CEO of Nvidia: Safety is an engineering problem to be solved. We don't need new laws or new regulations.]

On one side is Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who expresses concern over the steep advancement speed of AI and calls for safety guardrails. On the other is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who argues that the matter should be left to the autonomy of companies and the market.

The debate was fueled by a recent warning from a researcher who left Anthropic.

Claiming that the industry is rushing toward "self-improving superintelligence" where artificial intelligence enhances its own performance, the researcher stated, "Developers genuinely believe this technology could kill us all within 10 years."

Anthropic's head of safety research also stated that the probability of human extinction within a decade is seen as over 10%.

Following this, Amodei stepped up to advocate for adjusting the speed of development, and heads of competing companies such as OpenAI and Google DeepMind subsequently chimed in.

Expert judgments vary widely on just how dangerous AI actually is.

While some experts put the possibility of human extinction in the double digits, other researchers view it as lower than the probability of an asteroid colliding with Earth.

Calculations grow complicated when viewed from the perspective of individual companies.

For leading AI companies, slowing down the development of advanced models allows them to cut massive additional investments while continuing to generate revenue from AI models already launched.

For AI companies preparing for an initial public offering, it could also serve as an opportunity to boost corporate value and improve their financial structure.

On the other hand, companies that must design and sell semiconductors and chips have little reason to welcome a slowdown.

Concerns over "regulatory capture" are also raised, suggesting that if leading AI firms set safety standards themselves, it could create high barriers to entry for latecomer companies lacking capital and technological power.

Layered into this are political considerations: if the United States slows down while China continues development, leadership in technology could be handed over.

Ultimately, entwined behind the AI safety debate and doomsday theories is a fierce competition for hegemony over who gets to set the pace of development and make the rules.

(Video Editing: Park Na-young, Design: Park Tae-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.