While the 2024 US election focused on traditional issues just like the economy and immigration, its quiet impact on AI policy could prove much more transformative. Without a single debate query or major campaign promise on AI, voters inadvertently tipped the scales in favor of accelerationists—those that advocate for rapid AI development with minimal regulatory hurdles. The implications of this acceleration are profound, ushering in a brand new era of AI policy that prioritizes innovation over caution and signals an important shift in the controversy between AI's potential risks and opportunities.
President-elect Donald Trump's pro-business stance leads many to consider his administration will favor those that develop and commercialize AI and other advanced technologies. His party platform has little to say about AI. However, it emphasizes a policy approach focused on repealing AI regulations, particularly targeting what they described as “radical left-wing ideas” within the outgoing administration's existing executive orders. In contrast, the platform supported AI development with the aim of promoting free expression and “human flourishing.” She called for policies that enable innovation in AI while rejecting measures that would hinder technological progress.
The first indications of appointments to leading government positions underline this direction. But there's a much bigger story unfolding: resolving the extreme debate concerning the way forward for AI.
An intense debate
Since ChatGPT was released in November 2022, there was a heated debate between those within the AI ​​space who need to speed up AI development and those that need to slow it down.
As is thought, in March 2023 the latter group proposed and warned a few six-month AI pause in the event of probably the most advanced systems an open letter that AI tools pose “significant risks to society and humanity”. This letter, led by the Institute for the Future of Lifewas prompted by the discharge of the GPT-4 Large Language Model (LLM) by OpenAI, a number of months after the launch of ChatGPT.
The letter was originally signed by greater than 1,000 technology leaders and researchers, including Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang, podcaster Lex Fridman, and AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell. The variety of signatories to the letter eventually rose to over 33,000. Collectively, they became referred to as “Doomers,” a term expressing concern about potential existential risks posed by AI.
Not everyone agreed. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has not signed. Neither did Bill Gates and plenty of others. Their reasons for not doing so varied, although many expressed concerns about possible harm from AI. This led to many conversations concerning the potential for AI to run amok and lead to disaster. It became fashionable for a lot of within the AI ​​field to discuss it Assessment of the probability of sinkingalso known as an equation: p(doom). Nevertheless, work on AI development was not interrupted.
As a reminder, my p(doom) was 5% in June 2023. That could appear low, nevertheless it wasn't zero. I felt that the main AI labs have made a serious effort to carefully test latest models before release and supply necessary guidelines for his or her use.
Many observers concerned concerning the dangers of AI have put the existential risks higher than 5%, and a few even higher. AI security researcher Roman Yampolskiy assessed the likelihood of AI End of humanity at over 99%. That is, a study The results, published earlier this 12 months, well before the election, reflecting the views of greater than 2,700 AI researchers, showed that “the median prediction for terribly bad outcomes, corresponding to human extinction, was 5%.” Would you board a plane if there was a 5% likelihood of it crashing? This is the dilemma facing AI researchers and policymakers.
Must go faster
Others were outspoken about concerns about AI, as an alternative pointing to what they saw because the technology's great advantage. These include Andrew Ng (who founded and led the Google Brain project) and Pedro Domingos (professor of computer science and engineering on the University of Washington and writer of “The master algorithm“). Instead, they argued that AI was a part of the answer. As outlined by Ng, there are indeed existential threats corresponding to climate change and future pandemics, and AI could be a part of the way in which these are addressed and mitigated.
Ng argued that AI development shouldn’t be halted but accelerated. This utopian view of technology was shared by others known collectively as “effective accelerationists,” or “e/acc” for brief. They argue that technology – and AI particularly – is just not the issue but the answer to most, if not all, of the world's problems. Startup accelerator Y combinator CEO Garry Tan, together with other outstanding Silicon Valley executives, included the term “e/acc” of their usernames on X to indicate alignment with the vision. Reporter Kevin Roose at The New York Times captured the essence from these acceleration advocates, saying they’re taking a “full throttle, no brakes” approach.
A Substack newsletter from a number of years ago described the principles underlying effective accelerationism. Here is the summary they provide at the tip of the article, in addition to commentary from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
AI acceleration ahead
The 2024 election end result might be seen as a turning point, enabling the accelerator vision to shape US AI policy for the subsequent few years. For example, the President-elect recently named technology entrepreneur and enterprise capitalist David Sacks as “AI Czar.”
Sacks, a vocal critic of AI regulation and advocate of market-driven innovation, brings his experience as a technology investor to the role. He is one among the leading voices within the AI ​​industry, and far of what he has said about AI aligns with the accelerationist viewpoints of the brand new party platform.
In response to the Biden administration's AI executive order in 2023, Sacks said tweeted: “The US political and financial situation is hopelessly broken, but we’ve got an unparalleled advantage as a rustic: cutting-edge innovation in AI, fueled by a very free and unregulated software development market.” That’s just ending.” While Sacks’ influence While AI policy stays to be seen, his appointment signals a shift toward policies that favor industry self-regulation and rapid innovation.
Elections have consequences
I doubt nearly all of voters gave much thought to the implications for AI policy when casting their vote. Nonetheless, consequently of the election, accelerationists have made concrete gains, potentially sidelining those that advocate for a more cautious federal government approach to mitigating the long-term risks of AI.
As accelerationists plot the trail forward, the stakes couldn't be higher. Whether this era heralds unprecedented progress or unintended catastrophe stays to be seen. As AI development accelerates, the necessity for informed public discourse and vigilant oversight becomes increasingly necessary. How we navigate this era will determine not only technological progress, but in addition our shared future.
To counterbalance the dearth of measures on the federal level, it is feasible for a number of federal states to issue various regulations, which has already happened in some cases California And Colorado. California's AI security bills, for instance, deal with transparency requirements, while Colorado addresses AI discrimination in hiring practices and provides models for state-level governance. Now all eyes shall be on the voluntary testing and self-imposed guardrails at Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and other AI model developers.
In summary, the victory of the accelerationists means fewer restrictions on AI innovation. While this increased speed can result in faster innovation, it also increases the chance of unintended consequences. I'm now revising my p(doom) to 10%. What's yours?
