On: AI CEOs say they need to slow the pace of development. But will they?

The men who built the carriage now beg the driver to go slower, and the public applauds their prudence. I find it the most charming performance of the season. There is nothing so persuasive as a warning issued by the person best positioned to profit from ignoring it.

One of them tells us the thing may end the human race by 2030, and yet his company continues its work with the diligence of a man who believes his own obituary can be scheduled between appointments. If I truly thought my invention would extinguish the species, I should like to think I would take up gardening instead. But then, sincerity is the most difficult of all the arts, and these gentlemen have chosen the easier one: solemnity.

Note the elegance of the arrangement. To slow down is to be virtuous; to slow down slightly less slowly than one’s rival is to be solvent. The conscience is announced at the press conference and quietly left in the cloakroom during negotiations. Each firm assures the others that restraint must be mutual, which is the oldest form of the dinner-party promise: I shall stop gossiping the moment you do.

And the public, poor dear, is comforted. There is nothing we trust so much as a danger described in detail by the very people selling us the remedy. The apothecary who invents the disease as well as the cure has at least the merit of keeping the whole transaction in one shop.

I do not doubt their fear is genuine. Fear so often is, right up until the moment it becomes inconvenient. The race will continue at precisely the pace it was always going to, and the letters pleading for moderation will be remembered as lovely stationery. A pause, like a virtue, is only ever admired in others.