(Compact Magazine) – Last April, 600 people gathered for a technology policy conference in downtown Washington, DC. The main speaker, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, laid out what he called the “San Francisco consensus”: the view that “within three to five years, we’ll have what is called artificial general intelligence,” which will be able to extend its own capabilities without needing input from human beings. This development, according to the consensus, could bring considerable benefits, but also risks bringing about human extinction. The challenge of getting to one by avoiding the other, Schmidt explained, “is called the ‘eye of the needle’ problem. You need to get through this eye of the needle without killing yourself and killing everybody else, to get to this promised land of AI.” 

In this statement, Schmidt summed up a common way of understanding AI progress. We are developing more and more powerful AI systems that pose extreme risks, but also promise great benefits. (Read More)