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My North Star for the Future of AI - The Atlantic

theatlantic.com · 3,481 words · saved by 1 readers

The most powerful companies in the world are shaping what artificial intelligence will become—but they’ll never get it right without the ethos and values of university scientists. Whatever academics like me thought artificial intelligence was, or what it might become, one thing is now undeniable: It is no longer ours to control. As a computer science professor at Stanford, it had been a private obsession of mine—a layer of thoughts that superimposed itself quietly over my view of the world. By the mid-2010s, however, the cultural preoccupation with AI had become deafeningly public. Billboards along Highway 101 on the California coast heralded the hiring sprees of AI start-ups. Cover stories about AI fronted the magazines in my dentist’s waiting room. I’d hear fragments of conversation about AI on my car radio as I changed stations. ENJOY A YEAR OF UNLIMITED ACCESS TO THE ATLANTIC—INCLUDING EVERY STORY ON OUR SITE AND APP, SUBSCRIBER NEWSLETTERS, AND MORE. The little red couch in my off

Whatever academics like me thought artificial intelligence was, or what it might become, one thing is now undeniable: It is no longer ours to control. As a computer science professor at Stanford, it had been a private obsession of mine—a layer of thoughts that superimposed itself quietly over my view of the world. By the mid-2010s, however, the cultural preoccupation with AI had become deafeningly public. Billboards along Highway 101 on the California coast heralded the hiring sprees of AI start-ups. Cover stories about AI fronted the magazines in my dentist’s waiting room. I’d hear fragments

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