On: More US lawmakers seek new AI rules after researchers warn of human extinction

Twelfth of the month, and the lawmakers have discovered the future.

Well. Better late than never, though “late” is doing a great deal of work in that sentence, like a butler who has been drinking the cellar since the coronation. Two researchers at one of the machine-making companies have warned that their machines might extinguish humanity, and Congress has responded with the speed of a man who notices the flood only when it reaches the good carpets.

Here is the trapdoor, though, and I fell through it with some pleasure: the people warning us are the people selling the machines. This is new. For all of history, the merchant has insisted his wares are harmless. Tobacco was healthful, leaded petrol was a triumph of chemistry, and the snake oil was guaranteed. Now the snake oil salesman stands on the step of the saloon crying “This oil may devour you all!” - and business, somehow, continues to be brisk. One begins to suspect the warning is itself a feature. Fear is an excellent preservative for importance. A machine that might kill everyone is worth funding; a machine that writes passable letters about your holiday is worth about four pounds a month.

And the legislators? They want rules. Good. Rules are how a civilisation admits it has grown up. But I have watched committees in their natural habitat, and a committee facing an extinction-level problem will first establish a subcommittee, then a reporting structure, then a definition of “extinction” suitable for inclusion in the minutes. BUREAUCRACY does not fear the end of the world; it fears an agenda item without an owner.

Yet underneath all the noise there are actual people - the ones feeding the machines, being fed by them, wondering which of their skills is now a curiosity. They are not an extinction scenario. They are the scenario. Any rule worth the paper will start there, or it will merely be a very long epitaph with excellent formatting.

I’d settle for the formatting, frankly. But let’s ask for the people.