You are the scariest monster in the woods

I don’t really believe in the threat of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence—human-level intelligence) partly because I don’t believe in the possibility of AGI and I’m highly skeptical that the current technology underpinning LLMs will provide a route to it. But I also think there’s something we should actually be afraid of long before AGI, if it ever comes.

When talking about humans in any context, whether it’s us vs sharks, or us vs wolves, or us vs <insert anything that scares us>, and especially when it’s us vs <some technology>, I am reminded of The Gruffalo. In this children’s story, a timid mouse convinces a scary monster (The Gruffalo) that the mouse is the scariest animal in the woods. In reality though, the forest animals are frightened of the Gruffulo with it’s terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth.

We (humans) are the scariest animal in the woods. We’re the scariest animal anywhere. At any time, in any location, under any circumstances, if there’s a human present then that’s the scariest motherfucker in the woods. We’re a danger to every living thing, ourselves included. Our collective ability to survive, adapt, control, kill, or wipe out any other species is unmatched.

Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is trying to distract you. AI is not the monster to be afraid of; we are.

Just like a hammer, sword, or a rifle lying on a ground is nothing to be feared, so too is AI. It’s just an inanimate object; a tool, potentially. Now, if you equip humans with a hammer, or sword, or rifle, or AI then you’ve just made the scariest monster in the woods (that’s you) even more terrifying.

To bring this around to more concrete thoughts: I do not believe that AI will enslave us, destroy our democracies, or our environment, or rob us of our skills, our purpose, or our jobs. That’s what humans will do. What we’ve always tried to do.

We don’t need to worry about AI itself, we need to be concerned about what “humans + AI” will do. Humans will do what they’ve always tried to do—gain power, enslave, kill, control, exploit, cheat, or just be lazy and avoid the hard work—but now with new abilities that we couldn’t have dreamed of.

I’m not saying “don’t worry”. I’m saying don’t worry about the technology of AI and continue to recognise that humans, and how they will use a technology, has always been our biggest threat.

The means accepting that AI isn’t something passively happening to us. It’s not a meteor heading towards Earth that we play no part in it or have no control over. It’s a thing we’re building, for other humans to use. We’re not building AI for gerbils here. How would we like other humans to use AI? How would we not like them to use it? We’re building and using this technology but pretending that unlike cars, and guns, and knives, and nuclear weapons, that we are powerless to understand, control, or regulate it for the betterment of humanity.

The scariest monster in the woods just got scarier and we can’t ignore that.