The Guardian’s profile of Google DeepMind’s philosopher was encouraging because it showed how seriously many of the people building AI are taking their ethical responsibilities (‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?’: the philosopher inside Google DeepMind AI, 30 June). Yet it also left me wondering whether the most important decision has already been made.
The article asks whose moral compass should guide artificial intelligence. My concern is that the direction of travel may already have been set, not by philosophers or engineers, but by the incentives surrounding the technology. Hundreds of billions are now being invested because AI promises commercial returns and geopolitical advantage. Those pressures are understandable, but they are also quietly determining the future before society has consciously debated where it wants to go.
This is why I think differently about Roko’s Basilisk, a famous 2010 thought experiment first proposed on the LessWrong AI forum. It imagines a future super-intelligent AI that rewards those who helped bring it into existence and punishes those who knowingly failed to do so, creating an incentive in the present to accelerate its own creation. The real basilisk, I would argue, is not a future machine but today’s economic logic. The compulsion comes not from tomorrow’s AI but from today’s competition, geopolitical rivalry and the relentless pursuit of returns. We have decided without deciding.
That matters because the opportunities we neglect may prove as important as the technologies we create. AI could help us live more sustainably, restore ecosystems and improve human wellbeing, or it could simply make us more efficient at pursuing the same extractive model of growth. Intelligence alone cannot answer that question.
The destination will be determined less by the intelligence we create than by the values and incentives that determine why we create it. If intelligence becomes abundant, wisdom may become the scarce resource.
Peat Allan
Southampton
In the profile of Google’s in-house ethicist, there were some deafening silences. What, for example, did this philosopher make of Google’s growing defence business, including with the Israeli military? Was he in favour of Google’s decision in 2025 to ditch its ban on AI weaponry? And what was his view of Google’s response to a colleague who sought to raise concerns internally about these issues? As the Guardian reported, the employee claims he was unfairly sacked. These are not isolated incidents. Google’s apparent retaliation against staff who question the ethics and actions of the company has taken place in both the US and the UK – including at Google DeepMind, the philosopher’s place of work.
Surely, this might be an issue where we could expect a moral philosopher and political theorist to weigh in? Sadly, we didn’t find out his thoughts. Instead, there was a brush-off to questions over military use of AI from one of…
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