The dust may be starting to settle on the Open AI drama of the weekend — Sam Altman is out and headed to Microsoft; the company is in revolt; people are having a change of heart; and more — so it’s time to sit down and parse the politics of the situation.
Tech folks often eschew talking about politics, dismissing it as a distraction or mistake. But several political perspectives are shaping quite a lot of the work on artificial intelligence, and so we need to understand them, especially now.
The different political perspectives currently concerning the development of AI lie along two axes: speed and concern. Speed is how quickly different groups want AI technology to progress. As for concern, some folks are worried about what we will not get if we slow AI development, while others are concerned that things could move too quickly and argue that we should be careful about what is being built and how we share and deploy it. Then there are people who think we are digging our own grave with new AI tech.